I’m pretty omni-movirous, meaning I like a variety of movies, so long as they’re moderately plausible and the stories are well told. There are not many genres I avoid, really — given that I want a good plot and don’t want to suspend disbelief like a hangman working overtime. So when we put Water in our Netflix queue, I’m sure the review looked good to me, but the reality, when I sat down to watch it, was different.
It was Friday night, after another work week of hammering legal verbiage into impeccable form (or as close as I im-peckishly get) and once the flick started I wasn’t sure I was up for it.
It’s a period piece, starting in India in 1938, and the grim premise is that Hindu widows are to remain loyal to their dead husbands, never remarrying, living a shadowy half-life shunted away. Water begins with a child bride, Chuyia, being dropped off at the gated ashram where the widows live in poverty. Much of the movie is set in this dilipidated building and courtyard, and down along the Ganges, with the river becoming a recurring setting and force in the plot.
Frankly, about ten minutes in I thought, great, a movie about poverty and oppressed widows, is this the Friday night I’ve been working toward?
But I am omni-movirous (movi-omnirous?), don’t depart quickly, and the 8-year-old Chuyia was just rebellious enough against her fate to be compelling. As the personalities of the other widows become apparent, the story had enough conflict to keep me interested, and the plot thickened from there.
It’s unfair to say any of the widows are villains, I think. Yet there is villainy, in the name of survival. And in the last half of the movie the scope widens, as Mahatma Gandhi becomes a transcending politician in India and the question of tradition versus fairness is forced. All of the main characters are caught in this moral pressure, with the widows in particular grappling with the choice of being devout, true to their families and faith, and wanting their own lives back.
I won’t divulge anything more, not wanting to ruin the ending. But I have a benchmark for successful movies that I’ll mention.
I find that a lot of movies begin well. Yet that is often difficult to sustain; some element of the plot forces characters to do something implausible or stupid, stories become farcical or characters become 2-dimensional and cartoonish.
For me, it’s the unusual movie that becomes even better in its second half. Water is one of those.
The arc of the liberal male protagonist, and his surprising dilemma, along with the riveting final scene and a heartwrenching choice a widow makes at a train station where Gandhi speaks, elevates this movie above the commonplace.
If you want immediate gratification, this might not be the movie for you. If you want an action-packed story to grab you from the get-go and take you off on an upbeat ride, this isn’t for you. But if you want involvement in characters’ lives and conflicts as a story is sustained, depth is revealed, and the pay off is well worth your time, Water delivers wonderfully.
OmbudsBen 
I absolutely loved this movie. I saw it in the theater when it came out, and it absolutely devastated me. (I reviewed it here, if you’re interested)
I tried to watch it again when it came out on dvd…but the movie broke my heart so much, I couldn’t ever open that little red envelope and put it in the player. Which is too bad, because it’s gorgeously shot, and very well acted, and the girl who plays Chuiya is amazing.
So glad you saw it and enjoyed it. I’ve seen the others in this heartbreaking trilogy (Fire, and Earth), and Water was my favorite, if you can call crying yourself silly a favorite.
what a wonderful review – I like films (like books) which are well-observed and character-driven, rather than just full of action, so it sounds like a good one for me. I’ll look for it in my local DVD rental shop.
sounds really interesting Ombud, kinda reminds me of the movie, The Kite Runner.
I’m kinda like you in my interest in movies and rarely turn any genre down. Although I don’t really do slasher flicks or ones that involve hauntings. i.e. Amityville Horror, The Omen, you know the types. They freak me out.
I saw this movie a year or so ago. It’s a visually beautiful film, and I think your review is spot on.
Your review reminded me that I want to see Fire and Earth (the other movies in the trilogy that includes Water). I’m off to add them to my Netflix queue.
Cool to hear that you liked it. I have a hard time with movies set in the past; don’t know why. So I probably would never have put this one on my Netflix queue, but now I will.
J, I read your review, and it was very good; you went into much more depth introducing the story than I did. I have a question for you, regarding how deeply it affected you. Obviously, that was primarily due to the misogynistic custom itself — how the widows were abandoned to this depressed ashram. (Sidethought: didn’t any of them have children? Some families must have kept widows…) But do you think the depth of your feeling was also due to the final scene, at the train station?
(If you answer, feel free to describe that — we can add disclaimers for any paragraph that reveals too much.)
Robin, I haven’t seen those, so would be interested to hear your take on the rest of the trilogy.
Trucie, I’d like to hear what you make of it, too. Maybe you could watch it with Handsome Vanilla Man and gauge his reaction as a sort of litmus taste for compatibility?
yb, you don’t like movies set in the past? So you prefer the present day? This leads to all sorts of questions for me. How far back does a setting have to be for you to lose interest? Are some time periods of marginal interest and others as repugnant to you as the horror genre is to me? Does your aversion move forward with you, at the same rate as time itself? I.e., might you have watched a movie in 1985 that was set a few years earlier, but you would not watch it now? E.g. might Americna Grafitti have been intersting to you in the 70s, but unintersting now?
Inquiring minds want to know. (For anyone abroad, this was, perhaps till is, the slogan of a ghaastly gossip rag, The National Inquirer.)
Jules, I saved you for last for a specific reason.
When I wrote that lead paragraph, and popped that omni-movirous bit in and mentioned genres I dislike, I started off detailing them.
Then stopped myself. Why am I doing this? Intending to describe a flick I liked, why go off on the genres I don’t?
So zapped it. But I am with you — I don’t do horror, in general, and this was a decision I made as a kid. I have enough imagination that that stuff stayed with me, turning dreamland into the terrified froth of nocturnal female horses.
(And why do we call them nightmares? As a former copyeditor, I’m not overly prone to vanquishing gender references everywhere — for instance, a coworker once tried to change the term “man-of-war” to “ship-of-war” as man-of-war is clearly sexist. I had to explain it’s a class of warship — and really, do we want to change ladybug to personbug? Hello? But I was something of a marked man–err, marked editor–after that.)
Good grief for sidetracks. I’m hopeless at derailing myself.
So I don’t do horror, and I’m also highly suspicious of the action or thriller genre, too. It’s not as automatic a no as, say, a slasher film, but it has to prove there is something redeeming it beyond using hundreds of gallons of fireballing gasoline to simulate multiple explosions and further heating the planet.
Also, I want something of character ambiguity. Mrs. Ombud is a Harry Potter fan and wanted to see Lord of the Rings when it came out, too.
I stayed with her for much of Potter, and can watch it. For me, one of the high points was that in the first film there is a teacher (Snape? Maybe?) who initially seems sinister but then is benign. I like that. I think we all have an admixture of good and bad.
I do not like clearcut white and black hats, good and bad — I particularly feel it does not serve our times well. There are many Christians, Europeans, Euro-Americans with dark sides to their souls, and there are many Muslims of kindly, sweet gentle disposition.
In Lord of the Rings good was always so virtuously good, and bad was always so very evil, and the twain so very rarely mingled, rather exploding like some star trek mix of matter and anti-matter.
As engineer Scotty used to say, “the engines can’t hold the pressure!” Thus, I get up and leave the room.
Have been out of commission (mucho work) of late; thanks all for stopping by, will try to drop back in sooner next time.
Sounds intriguing.
How would it stack up against Batman?
Bruce Wayne, with all of his resources, would have had a wonderful chance to do very much good.
The costume might have startled some.
But these poor forgotten women would probably have gotten beyond that.
Actually, A, I’d love to see your blogging shot at a Batman/Water screenplay …
Hey OB, I’m baaaaaaaack.
I too loved this movie. I’m pretty omniverous in general, not just with movies. Hee!
Man, my life has been one wild, freakishly crazy ride these past few months… as Mr. Bowie sings, Ch-ch-ch-ch- Changes! 🙂
Hope you are well and good. I’ll be stopping by.
The whole thing broke my heart, but the worst for me was the innocence of the little girl, and her being told if she went in and played with the old man, she would get candy. She was so trusting and innocent, for the last time in her life. Though she survived, and was rescued in a way that the older ‘prostitute’ could not be, how can she recover? Ugh. Just broke my heart.