Review of Content

Fire is about a beautiful young woman named Sita who has an arranged marriage into a New Dehli family that runs a sundries and video store. The entire family lives above the store including her new husband Jatin, her brother-in-law Ashok and his wife Radha,and  the matriarch Biji. Sita is put into an arranged marriage to Jatin, a modern young man with few beliefs. He agrees to the marriage but flaunts his mistress Julie over Sita. Over the span of time we find both protagonists Sita and Radha sharing their unhappiness while looking out over the city via rooftop.  Radha is alienated from her husband--who, depressed by her sterility while Sita is devastated that her husband loves another woman instead of her. One day, simply and directly, they begin to fall in love and soon they are in each other's arms, the sex scenes shot in shadows so deep that censors will struggle to be offended. The Indian context gives this story its voice. Lesbianism is so outside the experience of Hindu culture  that they do not even have the word. Sita and Radha’ lives have been made empty, pointless and frustrating by husbands who see them as sexual objects or servants. The film has a seductive resonance because Deepa has a deep understanding of the subject material which is more about personalities and situations than techniques and results.

Water is the disturbing tale of the Hindu widow, a woman traditionally shunned as bad luck and forced to live in destitution on the edge of society. Chuyia, an 8-year-old widow in the India of 1938, is blamed for her husband’s death, and is sent into exile by her own parents. She knows nothing of her husband but is banished by her parents to a decrepit house on the edge of the Ganges as per Hindu tradition. Chuyia is left there in tears absolutely devastated by the harsh and cruel reality of her world, but she holds onto the belief that  her parents will come back for her.