Spotlight: WATER and Writer / Director Deepa Mehta
Article by The Angry Critic.
As soon as the nominations were announced, it was gratifying to know that the critics rose up and chose WATER as one of the best foreign films of 2006, not because of the fact that it was an Indian film, or because of the controversy behind the movie, but because it is the right choice!
WATER is a fantastic movie, and the right movie, in terms of content to represent India at the Oscars, but wait a minute, is it even an Indian movie at all? WATER, the movie's official entry comes from CANADA.
What cruel fate is this for Indians around the world, except maybe the Indians in Canada. Already besmirched and led astray with false hopes of Oscar dreams from the Amir Khan starrer, LAGAAN, in 2001. A movie which was nominated from INDIA in the BEST FOREIGN FILM category, only to eventually lose to NO MANS LAND that year, but now WATER, a foreign language film in the native dialect of HINDI with English subtitles to be represented by CANADA? Say it isn't so!
But despite the cruel irony, that a movie focused on one of the most controversial subjects in Indian "pre-independence" era, Gandhian movement is ultimately a CANADIAN entry to get to the Oscars, nothing will derail the impact that will happen if this movie does win the OSCAR for BEST FOREIGN FILM.
It will finally put Indian subject matter and Indian filmmakers in the forefront in terms of world cinema and signal to the foreign press a very important harbinger that most Indians who live around the world already have known for sometime. We do make films besides Bollywood films! And yes, as a general population of authors, scholars, filmmakers, and auteurs, know very much like you do, how to create engaging, serious content!
If Deepa Mehta's WATER, is merely, the pebble splash in the ocean, then around the corner is the BOULDER, coming in the form of MIRA NAIR'S "THE NAMESAKE" perhaps for next year's Oscar race. Is it so ironic that both acclaimed filmmakers, MIRA NAIR, DEEPA MEHTA, along with their peer Gurinder Chada [BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM] have all enjoyed major distribution from FOX SEARCHLIGHT in the past two years?
When this writer used to work over at 20th Century Fox, the buzz about India and China, and the emerging films and new wave filmmakers had already caught their attention, and this was five years ago!
But this is 2007, and the first pebble has been cast officially, and it is WATER, and the movie carries with it, a potential DAM HOLDING surge of raucous popularity aimed squarely at thrusting INDIAN CONTENT squarely on the mainstream scene!
And so WATER carried with it, an important mantle, a crest, if you will, of importance in terms of BREAKING THROUGH, finally and winning the OSCAR for BEST FOREIGN FILM?
How good are the film's chances? I say very good, considering that this movie is coming off spectacular critical acclaim and the controversy of bringing this film to completion is almost as impactful as the subject matter of the film itself .
Finally, it's the other films in the category of BEST FOREIGN FILM that perhaps blueprint the real ODDS on the success of WATER. Only the recent release of Guillermo Del Toro's "PAN'S LABYRINTH" which released recently to spectacular acclaim poses the real serious threat to WATER in this year's race.
Despite this recent entry into the race, though, I do believe that WATER will EMERGE (ok had to throw in at least one pun) victorious come Academy Awards night and if it does, a new debate will RAGE, largely unnoticed by the rest of the world, but fervently among the Indian Community, did INDIA or CANADA win?
Let the games begin I say!
Other links:
Canada is proud of WATER
Here is the official nomination from AP News source
Recent interviews featured on DesiYou:
DesiYou on Deepa Mehta
DesiYou on Lisa Ray