Deepa Mehta's third feature film, Fire, is a delicate, tender story about two women finding love while caught in the bounds of tradition, a joint family, a somewhat tyrannical mother-in-law with a bell and a bed in the central location of the house, and self-consumed husbands. Sita (Nandita Das) comes into the household as the younger daughter-in-law, married to a man (Jaaved Jaaferi) in love with another woman and with no tenderness or kindness for Sita.
Sita gradually coaxes the sparks of rebellion and love in Radha (Shabana Azmi), the elder daughter-in-law. The moments of tenderness between Radha and Sita are little eddies of erotic poetry that seem to touch only the two women without being noticed by their husbands. At one point the family is at a picnic and Sita insists on massaging Radha's feet. At this very erotic moment, Radha's husband (Kulbushan Kharbanda) encourages the younger sister-in-law to continue massaging Radha's feet as it is her duty to serve her elders. The servant (Ranjit Chowdhry) seems to be the only one to resent the growing relationship between the two women because of his crush on Radha. The servant is a wonderfully developed character and his desires and needs for love and human contact are well explored.
It is easy to see and understand, though not forgive, how tradition and culture make men like Radha's husband construct their own prisons. To the end he can only think of his own needs, especially his need to justify and prove to himself that he has reached some salvation even though he believes he has failed at the essential task of producing a child, especially the all-important male heir. His only kindness to Radha, who is commanded to participate in his experiments on celibacy Mahatma Gandhi style, is not to have thrown her out for being barren ("Sorry madam, no eggs in ovary," was what the doctor said).
The only discordant note in an otherwise perfect film is the characters speaking in English. It would be more authentic to have the characters speak in Hindi and provide subtitles.

First published in the Maitri quarterly; reproduced here with permission.

-- Sonya Pelia

I believe that any movie dealing with such sensitive issues as human sexuality, caste or religious beliefs should not be competely dismissed- of course whether you agree with the film maker's view point is entirely your choice. "Fire" was screened at the University of Maryland, College Park campus about 4 weeks back and one could see a wide variety of reactions amongst the people who saw it- for quite a few students, this movie was about dealing with lesbianism in an Indian set up. For others however it was shocking and appalling because apparently there is no word in Indian languages to describe this sexual orientation. So one could see a huge chunk of viewers quite upset or embarassed since I believe they did not know how to react to what was according to them an alien concept.

All in all I enjoyed watching the movie, controversial and disturbing as it may be. Personally I feel that while the movie raised quite a few questions there were many instances where the comparison of the set up to Hindu epics appeared absolutely cliched and quite artificial.I feel that to bring out the point of the "purity of the elder sister-in-law", showing the entire Ram lila enactment was not required- in fact I do not think her confusion and fear was dealt with very clearly though many might diagree with me. While throughout the movie the physical aspect of the relationship was apparent but not shown(which was impressive) I felt the last dramatic scene of the sisters-in-law together, (when the husband walks in the room) was absolutely unnnecessary and could have been completely avoided. Also I found the escaping of the two main characters to the nizamuddin dargah a bit far fetched considering they were portrayed as devout Punjabi (hindu) wives- it appeared to be an unnecessary linking to religion to the issue in question.

Of course I don't think we can link Deepa Mehta's film making to Mira Nair's - I definitely feel that Mira Nair made her movie very loosely based on Kama Sutra and made the mistake of calling it so -if it had been named otherwise, the expectation of the audience would have been different- instead people went there hoping for a reenactment of the book. Deepa Mehta (though I haven't seen any other productions of hers), did appear to deal with the issue much more sensitively and defintely her movie was quite thought provoking which I cannot say for "Kama Sutra".

-- Madhushree Ghosh

I saw Fire and then Kama Sutra on consecutive nights. All I can say is when I walked (actually ran)out of Kama Sutra, I thought Fire was a great movie! Is the movie simplistic? yes. Is it pretentious? Perhaps. All wrong about caste, religion and sexuality? I don't even know what that means. So it is a flawed film, but I certainly am glad that it was made.

I'd say the one thing thing that troubled me (apart from the fact that the only hindi dialogue was between the servant and the milkman!) is that it somehow implies that a woman is driven towards her attraction to another woman because her husband won't sleep with her. SO if Kulbhushan Kharbanda hadn't been off doing his God thing and had been sexual with Shabana (sorry I can't remember any one's name in the film), then she wouldn't have been attracted to Nandita Das! It would be nice to see a more pro-active same-sex attraction.

-- Raka Ray

I liked the story of Fire. It was beautiful, like something right out of my daydreams. I didn't think it was realistic and that's okay with me. I felt it was revolutionary, a whole new to look at choices. I think it'll open people's minds. It bugs me when movies show a bad situation and don't offer any solutions. You are left feeling hopeless and depressed, for example Salaam Bombay (I loved it, don't get me wrong). Although sometimes happy endings make you think that there isn't really a problem. I was happy because Fire is a 'and they lived happily ever after' story. I think it's a big step, because in many movies with a controversial theme, someone dies in the end or is left with the eternal hurt of unrequited love. However, I am getting really tired of movie makers captilizing on the sensuality theme. I like sensuality but it's become some sort of a trend, esp in movies. "Like Water of Chocalate" started it and now everyone wants to ride that wave. Fire was no different in that sense. The whole theme around food, myths, esoteric quotes, 'exotic' clothes, massage has just been over done for me.

-- Farah Nousheen

My husband and I watched it last week, and we both thought it was very realistic and well made.

The younger sister-in-law - played by Nandita Sen, is named Sita in the movie, and the older one - played by Shabana Azmi - is named Radha. The agni-pareeksha and/or lakshman rekha parallel from Ramayana, is not as straightforward as it seems, as Radha is the one who walks through fire.

I thought it was a little strange that the two women should get into a physical relationship first, and then into an emotional, supportive one later. It seemed to me that they confided in each other only after making love, whereas I would have thought two unhappy women in the same family would first bond emotionally, then maybe explore a physical relationship.

It was a little strange to have everybody talk in English - I think the Hindi version would be more powerful, the little exchange in Hindi which the servant has with the milkman was very spontaneous.

But all in all, a very good film, sensitively made. Do watch it.

-- Shobana Swamy

i recall that someone had posted she was surprised that the two started loving only after sleeping together whereas it should be the other way around. it seems to me it was the other way around.

i seem to see talked-about movies only long after everyone else has. i found both kama sutra and fire extremely sensuous and subtle; both were a delight to experience with one's senses, and i would not want to intellectually analyze either.

About the names, which should have been interchanged. krishna's radha would be the one to initiate rebellious action, i'd say, and not rama's sita. it could be that deepa mehta wanted to imply that radha's krishna had another/many other women, like the younger brother; or that she wanted the shock value of using rama's sita as a lesbian. i don't like either of these options. i'd have preferred the names interchanged because one of the ways in which allusions work in any literary piece is by the strength of associations on the part of the informed reader, as stanley fish calls a good reader.

-- Uma Parameswaran

I was very excited about seeing the movie. I was very upset to hear all about the vandalism etc. So I rented the movie and we (my husband and I ) watched it along with another friend.

But I was greatly dissappointed by the film and infact saddened. I do not think it did justice to the issue of Lesbianism. I am not fully aware of the issues but I always thought that people are born with certain tendencies and not that you become one because you do not get your desire fullfilled by a man. I do not know how Lesbians feel about this potrayal. If this potrayal is accepted then one may consider lesbianism a "curable disease" which i think is entirely inappropriate.

I also was extremely disgusted at the use of Ramayana inappropriately. To show someone masturbating in front of the Ramayana was to me unneccesary insult to the religious feeling. More so the potrayal of the concept of the Hindu concept of limiting desires in such a negative light and ending with the asylum in a sufi shrine was also quite unneccesary. If anything islam is more limiting of rights of women than is Hinduism.

Basically I am amazed at why this movie won so many awards. Ofcourse all the actors were superb!. Shabana and Nandita were outstanding. But other than that , it did not reach out to me any way at all.

It seems like Deepa Mehta was saying (in a very American fashion) that sex is the ultimate God! That is certainly no cure for anything. As far as realism goes, it was the most unreal situation for Sisters -in-laws rarely get along . Maybe if they were friends it would be more acceptable.

One may attack religious sentiments for art sake if the art actually requires it. But doing it in itself does not make for art and it does hurts feelings.

-- Ranjani Saigal

[...]the gender of the lovers didn't matter...what mattered was the love between two human beings that brought them out of their abyss. Secondly, the servant's role was very symbolic, I thought: personifying treachery/intrigue within the household...he demeans and annihilates an old, deaf/dumb woman's raison d'etre, using *her* space and time to indulge in pornography...betrays the two lovers, of course, and the men in the household as well, the younger by divulging the side business in pornography when discovered by Radha; and the older by forcing him to confont his own denial of sexuality throughout the unfolding of the story.

I was also moved by the final scene of the lovers at the Muslim shrine. At its core, I believe that Islam treats women as equals in the eyes of God. For two Hindu women to seek refuge with the Almighty, ultimately, regardless of caste, creed, or sect, seemed to be the right ending for a country that is so torn politically. I think the film makes it very clear that it's our politics that makes us mortal enemies, not our religion; that we *use* religion to bolster our politics, our self-love, our self-glorification to maintain control over others. The women in the film struck me as a-political and religious, and the men struck me as political and irreligious.

-- Manjusree Sen

[...]I must say that I was incredibly moved by the movie. It was very easy, in fact, to completely forget the gender of the lovers, and that's where the mastery lies, I think. [We] had these big, sappy grins on our face when the hopscotch game turned erotic, or when they did that sweet and totally ridiculous dance together ! One feels like telling the other characters 'oh shut up and leave 'em alone, can't you see they're in love ?'

Someone mentioned that it would be expected that there would first develope an emotional bond, and then the physical one. I thought that's the way it went. The Karva Chauth scenes seemed particularly relevant in that sense. Also, it was mentioned that the 'other woman', Julie, was shallow and stereotypical. I didn't see it that way --- she seemed a gutsy woman with plans for her own career, determined to escape a country where she was part of a scorned minority. A cultivated American accent ? Well, if that's what it takes to get the 'breaks' in Hong Kong, why not ? If she didn't want to enter a oppressive joint family environment and become a 'baby producing machine', but preferred to have a casual fling -- well, more power to her !

-- Pia Sen

Film description: Set in contemporary India, Fire is the bold and compelling story of two sisters-in-law who break the bonds of obedience and tradition to start a new life together. Stars Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das.