FW: Deepa Mehta's _Fire_

[Michael Rabe]

Happily, I stand corrected: it is only the last film in the trilogy that
remains unfinished. See below:*

>I haven't seen Fire yet so I can't comment, but "Earth" is out.  I saw it
>recently at the Asia Society in New York.  It is about the partition of
>India based on Bapsi Siddhwa's book "Cracked India."  Rather tepid
>treatment of a powerful subject in my opinion.  I was disappointed.  The
>diaglogue was superficial, editing and timing were lame and the characters
>cardboardish.  This was a cinematographic opportunity to create an epic,
>but they missed the mark by a mile.  However, although it bordered on
>Bollywood occasionally, it was not in that category.  Some of the scenes,
>like the interiors of the Parsee household, were very evocative and I am
>glad I saw the film anyway.

For a second, more positive review of _Earth_ I'll be forwarding a
statement by Georgana Foster.
>
>Amita Sarin
>
> it was sad see
>>in a recent _India Today_ that's she's more or less abandoning the
>>completion of a trilogy, the final installments of which [well underway]
>>are called _Water_ [set in Benares] and _Earth_.  A Shame.
>>
>>Michael Rabe
>>SXU & SAIC, Chicago

*_The Canada-based mehta was headed for Varanasi to script _Water_, a film
about widows and the last in the trilogy.   _I was in mid-sentence, it was
a scene about an eight-year old widow getting her head shaved and I
stopped.  what's the point?  It will never be passed. I can't write in this
climate._  It's this climate of insecurity that has se the alarm bells
ringing." INDIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL, December 21, 1998, p. 41