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Canada, India · 2005
Rated PG · 1h 55m
Director Deepa Mehta
Starring Lisa Ray, Sarala, John Abraham, Seema Biswas
Genre Drama, Romance
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The year is 1938, and the groundbreaking philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi are sweeping across India. Meanwhile, 8-year-old Chuyia, newly widowed at 8-years-old, must go to live with other outcast widows on an ashram in Varanasi. Her presence transforms the ashram as she befriends two of her compatriots.
Gandhi did save India from the British, but he didn't save India from the Indians, and the horrific subjugation of widows continues there even today. It was only 10 years ago that Mehta encountered the Hindu widow who inspired her film.
Hitches some of the most irresistible conventions of Hindi movie melodrama to an earnest agenda of social protest.
Deftly balancing epic sociopolitical scope with intimate human emotions, all polished to a high technical gloss, Deepa Mehta's Water is a profoundly moving drama.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
The stunning Lisa Ray, a Bollywood exile, makes one of the most beautiful widows ever to grace the screen. Vidula Javalgekar gives a memorable turn as the infirm "Auntie." But the real find is Sarala, a Sri Lankan girl who memorized dialogue in a language she does not understand and delivers it with conviction.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
As beautiful as it is harrowing.
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
Exquisite storytelling, acting and visuals.
San Francisco Chronicle by Ruthe Stein
Mehta has created the perfect guide to this strange female world.
The A.V. Club by Tasha Robinson
Water is gorgeously composed and beautifully shot, with a dogged emphasis on water imagery and symbolism, and a luscious sense for color. It's often profoundly beautiful. But its distanced, calculated attempts to draw sympathy, from its wide-eyed child protagonist to its sad-eyed, personality-free lovers to its fairy-tale ending, all blunt the meaning behind that beauty.
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