eight point five out of ten
*** warning: spoilers****
I liked the concept of Water and its storyline. I liked its subtlety, its almost "a day in the life of" feel. The story follows a child bride, 7 years old, whose husband dies before she even meets him. She is sent off to a convent for widows where she is to spend the rest of her days in it. The actors were not necessarily particularly gripping save the widow Shakuntula who was the one widow who actually tried to create change. Upon researching the film I learned that the entire cast was recast from the original one because of the amount of time it took between riots over the film in India.
1) My family on my dad's side has been Muslim for about 600 years. That means before that we were most likely Hindu. That means that there is view likely an insensate of MINE who lived like this. Or threw herself upon the flames and died with her spouse. It was weird to watch it because it was a perspective that I guess papal whose family was in the revolutionary war and see such movies might feel a sense of "I can relate it" I could sort of relate to this. I wondered if someone who came before me, suffered in this way. It made it seem more real.
2) The subjugation of women and using religion as the means to do so she has no way to fight back lest she face the scorn of society is horrific and it upsets me off that this still occurs to this day. One main reason they did this according the movie was they did this so the woman would not factor in when the property disputes arose.
3) The little girl broke my heart. Such a beautiful little girl. And her life ruined. You look at those really old women. And you think. They were once chlorine and they grew old living here.
4) The prostitution was shocking. I could never imagine a convent for widows who are shunned from society to be a simultaneous brothel as well. I found it SOHO heartbreaking that one of the men who bought these women JUSTIFIED IT saying that it is a privilege for them to get to sleep with a brahaman caste man.
5) DID the little girl end up going to the home of narayan's father????? IS HE WHO RAPED HER? How could you rape a child? It broke my heart.
6) I am doing my term paper for my international human rights class on bride burning in India and one of the topics I'm discussing is child marriages. The reason child marriages are so common is b/c in India you have to pay the man a dowry of a sum of money an goods to marry your daughter. The younger the girl and the oilier the man, the less the dowry that needs to given. That is why there Ares many child brides. This practice has got to be stopped.
Anyways those are my thoughts on the movie. It was quite powerful. Very depressing. I can't belie it ages on to this day.
