Water

The final chapter in feminist Indian writer/director Deepa Mehta’s elemental trilogy (following Fire and Earth) is a bit of culture-clash viewing that subverts Western expectations. Set against the background of the rise of Gandhi in late-’30s colonial India with an eight-year-old-girl widowed the day after her marriage to a middle-aged man as, shorn of hair and her worldly goods, she is shipped off to a hostel for widows to be confronted with three choices: be torched on her husband’s funeral pyre, marry his brother, or be sequestered in the ashram to live out the rest of her life in penance and poverty. Not much of a choice, but she chooses Door No. 3 and enters a world of fundamentalist repression where she is schooled by a bevy of disposable women of the traditional way. Of course, this being a Bollywood production, there are also musical numbers. Add to the mix outstanding performances, evocative cinematography and a wrenching narrative laced with gentle humor, and you’ll find a fine example as to why Bollywood has begun to trump Hollywood for genuine filmmaking.