Amazing Movie : Water

"A widow should be long suffering until death, self-restrained, and chaste. A virtuous wife who remains chaste when her husband has died goes to heaven. A woman who is unfaithful to her husband is reborn in the womb of a jackal."
- The Sacred Texts of Manu

I just finished watching this Movie. It is about a seven year-old girl named Chuyia, who has just been widowed. According to Hindu culture, she is sent to live in a home with other widows. They are outcasts, shunned by the rest of society. There is a scene where one of the women accidentally bumps shoulders with a woman near the river, and the other woman tells her, "You've polluted me! I have to bathe again!".

This movie was an interesting choice for me right now, because of the subject matter: how the "truth" in religion, and your culture can become distorted because our individual personalities make us each interpret the texts and writings that the religion is based on. There was major protest that this movie should not have been made, but I am glad it was. It may not have been a summer blockbuster, but it will make you think a little about the world. In my books, that makes it worth seeing.

On a side note, this movie is the third in a series by the writer/director Deepa Mehta. The first two movies were Fire and Earth, which I am now going to look for in the video store.