Putting a Light Touch and Some Melodrama on Tragedy

Water (3/5 stars)

This movie is the story of a girl who at the age of 8 is widowed from an arranged marriage, and is forced by Hindu law to live the rest of her live in an ashram living a life of self-denial in order to atone for her wrongs that brought upon the death of her spouse.

What could have been a quite tragic story, considering that the girl is only 8 years old, and it is revealed that she does not even know her husband or remembering being married at the time of his death, ends up much less because the director decides to focus more on melodramatic distractions and even jokes rather than the horrible situation that this poor girl is put into.

Much time is spent on the story of a woman, also in the ashram, who falls into a forbidden love with a Gandhi supporter (the story is set at the time of his rise to prominence). Also much is focused on ridiculing (and if it was a little more satirical it might work) the woman who appears to be the leader of the ashram, and various other people who support the horrible practice. What it does have going for it is beautiful cinematography and information: I was not aware of this practice going on before and I am facinated (although also horrified) by it.

If this was my movie I would have made I simply would have made it much more bleak and harsh. The subject matter does not lend itself to comedy, or melodrama, it should have instead focused on hitting the point home.