With the passing of Satyajit Ray, the mantle of leadership for Indian cinema will inevitably pass to a younger generation of directors. One of those perched to assume a portion of that leadership is Deepa Mehta.

Historical Background: Deepa Mehta is a Toronto-based Canadian woman of Indian ancestry and a talented young director making films related to her native country. Born in India in 1949, she emigrated to Canada in 1973. Mehta’s debut feature film was Sam & Me (1991). She followed that in 1993 with Camilla, starring Jessica Tandy (now deceased) and Bridget Fonda.

Earth is the middle film in a trilogy consisting of Fire (1997), Earth (1998), and Water (in production, 2004). She is making her mark by tackling themes well outside the mainstream of Indian culture. Fire dealt with a lesbian relationship between two Indian women living in the same household, both caught in unhappy marriages. Fire triggered hostile demonstrations in India but received widespread positive regard internationally. It won the award for Best Canadian Film (as chosen by the audience) at the Vancouver International Film Festival, took two Silver Hugo Awards at the Chicago International Film Festival (Best Direction and Best Actress), won a Jury Award in Mannheim, and Favorite Foreign Film in Paris.

The subject matter of Earth was even thornier – the violence caused by religious hatred during India’s most traumatic recent moment of history – the partition of the country in 1947. The script for Earth was based on a highly acclaimed novel by Bapsi Sidhwa, entitled Cracking India. Mehta acknowledges that “it is impossible to tell this story of this period in India's history without being contentious." Nevertheless, Earth is about as even-handed a rendition of this piece of history as is feasible. Part of that balance can be attributed to Mehta being an Indian born Hindu while the author of the novel was a Parsee who grew up in Pakistan. It also helped that one of them now lives in Canada and the other in the U.S., giving them the benefit of the perspective that comes with distance. Nevertheless, Earth was banned in Pakistan and significantly censored in India, including the love-making scene and five other cuts.

India was part of the British empire for more than two-hundred years and as long as British oversight continued, Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus alike shared the objective of freeing the country from British colonial control. Once the British determined to pull out in 1947, they set an extraordinarily short timeframe, what with their preoccupation with the exigencies of World War II. British Viceroy Lord Mountbatten announced the British pullout of August 15th, 1947 just months before the event was to occur. Along with this, the British announced a plan for partition of the country into two separate countries – a Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan. The somewhat arbitrary lines of partition left more than ten million Indians on the wrong side of the proposed division. The result was one of the greatest mass exoduses in history, with approximately 7 million Muslims crossing into Parkistan and some five million Hindus traveling the other direction. Along with the exodus came eruptions of unthinkable violence, with atrocities committed on both sides. One million people were killed in a matter of just a few months.

The Story: Rather than attempt to recount the history of the partition in a documentary fashion, Mehta’s film seeks to personalize the trauma of this period through its effect on a small group of individuals that includes representatives from all of the four main religious groups in this part of the Indian subcontinent at the time: Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Parsees. The story takes place in Lahore, which is to be situated in the new country of Pakistan. At the center of the story is an 8-year-old girl named Lenny Sethna (nicknamed “Lenny-baby”) (Maia Sethna), who was crippled by polio, and her nanny (or “Ayah”), Shanta (Nandita Das). The Sethna family includes Lenny and her mother, Bunty (Kitu Gidwani), and father, Rustom (Arif Zakaria). They belong to the Parsee religious and ethnic group, a small but distinctive population in India descended from Persians who were driven to India during Muslim invasions of Persia during the 7th century. Numbering only a few hundred thousand, the Parsees have survived in India via a long-established policy of neutrality.

Shanta, the nanny, on the other hand is Hindu. Shanta is exceptionally beautiful and appealing in disposition and has therefore acquired multiple suitors. She is somewhat the focal point of gatherings in the park of a small circle of friends of mixed religions – all male except for Shanta (and young Lenny, who tags along). Her most active suitors are two Muslim men: Dil Nawaz (Aamir Khan), who sells ice candy, and Hasan (Rahul Khanna), who is a masseur. Others in this circle of friends include Sher Singh (Navtej Singh Johar), who is a Sikh, and Imam Din (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), another Muslim. Shanta not only mesmerizes the circle of young men by her beauty and pleasing disposition but also quickly suppresses any intolerant discussion of religious differences. The groups of friends obviously represent a microcosm of India’s ethnic mix and Shanta can be seen as the surface harmony imposed by British rule. Initially, Dil Nawaz appears to have the upper hand in pursuing Shanta. He is more aggressive in wooing her. Hasan, by contrast, is more sensitive and thoughtful. Once the religious intolerance starts to bubble up in the community, Shanta begins to find Hasan’s genuine tolerance and sensitivity more palatable than Dil’s aggressiveness and overt Muslim bias.

The narrative begins on the day of independence from British colonial rule. It is a day of enormous celebration, with kites flying from rooftops everywhere. At the same time, there are ominous warnings of impending problems as the nation, newly freed but also newly partitioned, tries to sort out its religious divisions. The majority of the population in Lahore is Muslim but most of the businesses are owned by Hindus, so each group initially has reason to hope that Lahore will end up in the country most favorable to their own interests. When it becomes evident that Lahore will be part of Pakistan, most of the Hindus and Sikhs pick up and leave. Those that decide to stay behind soon find themselves in great jeopardy. The situation becomes highly volatile when a train arrives in Lahore supposedly bringing Muslim refugees from Gurdaspur, India. Everyone on board the train has been slaughtered. The breasts of the women have been cut off and collected in a gunny sack. Among the victims were sisters of Dil.

The only alternatives to flight or death for the Hindus and Sikhs is quick conversion. The Sethna’s gardener, Yadav, converts to Islam, complete with a new circumcision. The 10-year-old daughter of the Sethna’s sweeper (and a sometimes playmate of Lenny) is married off to an elderly midget so that her Hindu family can convert to Christianity! Child brides were apparently commonplace in India. Bunty’s best stab at an explanation of this horror to Lenny is that “Fear makes all of us abandon reason.” Shanta intends to emigrate to India with Hasan (who is willing to convert to Hinduism to marry her). There is a lovely romantic interlude that leads to this joint decision for Shanta and Hasan. With so much out-of-control hatred swirling about, however, there’s bound to be tragedy for some, but I’ll leave the specifics for readers to discover on their own should they choose to watch the film. Violent outbreaks of religious hatred bring out the worst in people, including hatred, torture, betrayal, jealousy, rape, murder, and opportunism.

Themes: Mehta seems intent on placing the lion’s share of the blame for the tragic violence during partition on the British. Certainly, the British displayed a blatant callousness in their failure to shepherd more adequately the transition from colonial status to independence. Yet, the British failure can also be understood as unmasking latent religious intolerances among the people of India, and for that the blame rests with the Indian people themselves: the religions, the religious leaders, and the practitioners of each of the religions who engaged in violence. Most religions fail at teaching tolerance for other religions precisely because they are in the business of recruitment, and effective proselytizing requires the claim of superiority.

Production Values: Earth is something of a gem, but not well enough polished to qualify as a masterpiece. The narrative is engaging, especially given that it is based on fact and a book that was, reputedly, semi-autobiographical in nature. On the other hand, the personal stories seem almost insignificant in relation to the magnitude of the national tragedy. Sometimes personalizing the huge tragedies of history makes them more comprehensible; other times it only trivializes them. Earth ends up doing a little of both.

The dialog too often descends into cliché and aphorisms. The symbolism also tends to be of the overly obvious kind. For example, young Lenny drops and breaks a plate and then naively inquires as to whether one can break a country. In another scene, Lenny offers cake to a refugee boy who has lost his entire family and is amazed to discover that the boy doesn’t even know what “cake” means. Shades of Marie Antoinette! The love scene involving Shanta and Hasan takes place in the ruins of a building as if to imply that this moment of genuine love between a Hindu and a Muslim can only exist in the old India that existed prior to partition, which is now ruined.

The cinematography is, on the whole, a strong point of the film. Although Pakistani authorities denied access to Lahore itself, the stand-in locale was credible and nicely photographed. There was no phony oriental mystique applied. The drab gray and brown colors of the environment were nicely contrasted with some colorful fabrics for the women’s clothing. The musical score by A.R. Rehman was well-conceived.

All of the performances were solid but the three involved in the central love triangle were exceptional. Nandita Das is gorgeous and previously starred in Fire for Mehta. Aamir Khan is a popular film star in India. He appeared in Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001). I liked the performance by Rahul Khanna even better.

Bottom-Line: Earth was winner of the Prix Premiere du Public at the Asian Film Festival in Deauville, France and the Critics’ Award at the Schermi d’Amore International Film Festival in Italy. This film provides both an engaging narrative and a lesson in history for those not already familiar with this difficult chapter in Indian history. I highly recommend it.

The only extra on the DVD is the theatrical trailer. Earth is in various Indian languages (Hindu, Urdu, Parsee, and Punjabi) and some English with English subtitles during the non-English language segments. Earth is rated R for violence, torture, profanity, non-explicit sex, and ethnic slurs. It has a running time of 110 minutes.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from India:

Aparajito
Charulata
Jalsaghar
Kadosh
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
Mother India
Pather Panchali
Salaam Bombay!
The Terrorist
The World of Apu

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age