Paving Her Own Way - Filmmaker Deepa Mehta

By Pegah Aarabi

      Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta has become an icon in the film industry. One of few filmmakers to gain both international praise and scorn, the Indo-Canadian stays true to her vision, despite the many obstacles that befall her.

Born in Amritsar, India, in 1949, Deepa immigrated to Canada in 1973 during a brief marriage to Paul Saltzman, a Canadian filmmaker and producer. She has been open in discussing the fact that she neither fully belonged in India after leaving, nor in Canada where she was always seen as a "visible minority". Deepa, whose father was a film distributor and theater owner, began her film career by making children's films. She moved on to television, as a producer and director. Her films – starting with Sam & Me, to the latter day elements trilogy, which recently reached a conclusion with the highly anticipated final installment, Water – deal with everything from sexuality, racial tension, racism, religion and patriarchy, to politics and forbidden love. As a result, Deepa is no stranger to controversy.

At the Indian Film Festival in 1996, where the first installment of the elements trilogy, Fire, premiered male viewers became so enraged and violent that the police had to be called. The film, about sister-in-laws' who turn to each other for a relationship due to their husbands ambivalence, went on to win 14 international awards, but burnings of the theatres showing the film along with protests continued. The second installment in the series, Earth, didn't garner nearly as much controversy, but did manage to push some religious hot-buttons. Based on Bapsi Sidhwa's book Cracking India, the film is set during the tumultuous time in 1947 after the end of British colonial rule and tells the story of a Hindu girl and Muslim boy who fall in love.

With all the controversies and successes behind her, in 2000 Deepa set out to make the final installment of the elements trilogy, Water, set in the late 1930's, about three widows in an ashram, a home for widows. Filming began in Varanasi, India. But based on her previous controversial films and the plotline of this one, sets were burned and filming was met with thousands of protesters. While she had permission to shoot the film, because of the unrest, the Indian government declared that law and order was at risk and that filming must be stopped. In 2004 Deepa began filming again, this time in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

HILARY Magazine recently sat down with Deepa to discuss her inspirations for her films, particularly the elements trilogy, and to get her view on all the controversy that has surrounds her.

HILARY Magazine: Regarding the titles of all three films in the trilogy, Fire, Earth, and Water, aptly named the elements trilogy, why did you choose elements and particularly these elements?

Deepa Mehta: Elements nurture us, and can destroy us. It's their inherent power and their dichotomy that intrigued me: fire for its conflagration, earth for its solidity and water for its fluidity.

Deepa Mehta, center, with the cast of Water

HILARY Magazine: What inspired these three films?

Deepa Mehta: Politics. Fire deals with the politics of sexuality, Earth with the politics of the sectarian war, and Water with the politics of religion.

HILARY Magazine: You have chosen to take on the most controversial topics, religion, sexuality, politics, and patriarchy, issues that some filmmakers shy away from, what made you want to tackle these issues and what kept you motivated to deal with the obstacles that ensued because you tackled these issues?

Deepa Mehta: Curiosity is what motivates me generally, curiosity about the oppression of women in particular. Obstacles are inherent in every film one makes. It's the nature of the business. How to make them as least effective as possible depends, I guess, on how passionately one feels about the subject.

HILARY Magazine: Following up on the previous question, how were you able to overcome all the obstacles that you endured while trying to make Water, after initially trying to shoot back in 2000, facing the set burnings and protests, and with the re-shoot in 2004?

Deepa Mehta: I believed in and was committed to the script of Water. That helped enormously in dealing with the cacophony that ensued when we were filming 5 years ago. The shut-down hurt, bewildered and angered [me] initially, but it dissipated by the time we resurrected the film.

HILARY Magazine: Politics is the backdrop in Water, as well as in Earth, and is a catalyst for the stories of both films, what made you want to use politics in you films in this way?

Deepa Mehta: Politics are imposed upon people. In a sense the policies of politics can manipulate us without us even being aware of being used thus.

HILARY Magazine: In Water and Earth why did you choose to bring the story into focus using a child and particularly in Water, what inspired the character of Chuyia?

Deepa Mehta: Chuyia, the child widow is the voice of innocence, an uncorrupted voice and eye who says it as she sees it.

HILARY Magazine: In Water there seems to be a conflict between purity and impurity, what should be pure, like childhood, love, even the river, are all tainted by the impurities of some, why did you want to bring attention to this conflict?

Deepa Mehta: Conflict seems to be an essential essence of our lives. Without it and its resolution growth is an impossibility.

HILARY Magazine: The patriarchal society is criticized in Water, Earth and Fire, what made you want to bring to light the fallacies and harsh realities of this type of society despite the fact that in most parts of the world, and arguably all parts of the world, the patriarchal society is still considered to be the norm?

Deepa Mehta: I believe in equality of the genders. Top heavy patriarchy (for that matter even matriarchy) leads to an uneven playing-field.

HILARY Magazine: The struggle of women and their treatment due to religious doctrines is clear in Water, while this film is set in the 1930's the reality is that women all over the world are still treated inhumanely because of literal and politically favorable interpretations of religious doctrines. Similarly the issues in Earth, of religious differences, exist today, is there a reason why you didn't choose to place these films in present time?

Deepa Mehta: Earth is about a very particular time in Indian History, the division of India into Pakistan and India. Its Historical context is imperative to the plot of the film. Water too is set in a period when child marriages were not so uncommon. Also, the rise of nationalism via Gandhi was important [because] Gandhi felt strongly that India's social fabric had to change.

HILARY Magazine: The issues in Water and the preceding films transcend all nationalities, although clearly part of their success is that they take viewers into the Indian culture; do you think in the future you will tackle similar issues within other cultures, perhaps in a Canadian setting?

Deepa Mehta: They say, that the more specific a film is, the more universal it becomes. I am happy that Water has appealed to as many people as it has.

HILARY Magazine: Are you currently working on any upcoming films, and if so can you tell us a little bit about them?

Deepa Mehta: Toying with a few ideas. Let's see which of them rises to the surface!

Read our review of Deepa's film Water