water is a triumph

tonight there was plenty of rain and hail in san francisco.

denise called and invited me to a screening of deepa mehta's water. i tried to get in last night, so perhaps this was a sign that i was meant to see this film.

after some driving difficulty, i arrived at the theater and the screening began.

i was taken on a journey to 1930s india. an 8 year old widow is taken to an ashram after her hair is shorn, her wedding bracelets broken from her wrists, and she is dressed in a white robe.

her youth turns over the ashram, infuses it with her liveliness, questions of tradition, and through her relationships with her peer widows we see glimpses of these women's glory, the effect gandhi is beginning to have on the people, and human nature's nurturing and destructive side.

metha stood in front of the audience and entertained a few questions. she discredited the rumor that the film was banned in india. but she explained that after hindu fundamentalists destroyed the set in 2000 it took her 4 years to reach a place where she could continue the project, and it was completed in sri lanka.

she said she would never make a film called, "air".

water opens in the bay area in april.