Analysis of Deepa Mehta’s Fire

Movie "Fire"

Production Details/Background

Fire is a film that was unveiled in the year 1996 and directed by Deepa Mehta (Bedi and Mehta, 1996). Fire is the first movie of the trilogy of movies directed by Deepa Mehta and set in India. The second film in the trilogy was Earth and was unveiled in the year 1998 and finally the last film Water was unveiled in 2005 (Wijegunasingha, 2000).

Plot Summary

The plot of the file Fire encompasses the story of Radha who is a middle-aged married woman and her younger sister-in-law, Sita, who is much more westernized, in a modern Indian middle class household in Delhi (Burton, 2013). These two women are ill-treated and victimized by their spouses. As a result of Radha's barrenness, Ashok her husband opts to take an oath of celibacy which he tests it with Radha in bed. Ashok is engrossed with the quest for divine redemption under the guidance of his guru. He describes women exclusively with respect to their customarily set purposes as spouses and mothers. Ashok just expects his wife to be submissive and obedient (Burton, 2013). On the other hand, Jatin who is Sita's husband is infatuated with his Indo-Chinese paramour, Julie. Jatin is insensitive towards his wife and often turned violent resulting in unhappy and sexually fruitless matrimony (Burton, 2013).

The movie epitomizes Radha and Sita as two Indian women who are trapped in a cruel and overbearing mesh of obligations towards their households, arranged marriage, and customary male-controlled ideas of responsibility. The motion picture depicts the lure, close friendship and subsequent lesbian relationship between the sisters-in-law (Burton, 2013). When Radha and Sita's secret is known, they separate from their husbands. In turn, they disentangle themselves from the tyrannical ties of masculine control over their sexuality and personality instead of beseeching their husbands for clemency (Burton, 2013).

Film Analysis

The major aspect that is taken out of the film is the journey of identity that is experienced by Radha and Sita. These two women as depicted by Mehta in the film, transform from being submissive, obedient, righteous women who honor the family into women who do away with customary to become women who are empowered and make their own decisions. Mehta elucidates the struggle that exists against engrained cultural outlooks while trying to end a marriage in India (Burton, 2013).

Analysis of a Scene

The aforementioned aspects can be perceived in a potent representative incidence towards the culmination of the film. This is the scene where Radha is trapped in a kitchen fire and from which Ashok disgusted by finding out about her lesbian affiliation with Sita, decides not to rescue her. According to Burton (2013), this scene stirs up and rekindles the occurrence of "accidental kitchen fires" in present day India. These are the instances where women are often killed owing to disputes concerning dowry. Nonetheless, Radha manages to survive this ordeal and unites with Sita at the tomb of Nizammudin, which in the film acts as a representation of the unknown (Burton, 2013). This scene relates to mythological story of godess Sita's tribulation in fire to substantiate her purity and submission to her husband Rama. However, the movie does not depict this so strongly. In the end, Ashok's wife Radha goes through the fire to proclaim her liberty from masculine control and customary philosophies of sexual purity (Burton, 2013).

Positive Comments

The depicted relationship between Sita and Radha in the movie earns unequivocal sympathy of the audience and unreserved admiration. The pronounced artistic supremacy of Fire is centered in its capacity to make the viewer empathize and have veneration towards a relationship that in regular everyday life is by and large not accepted and acknowledged. Some of the criticism linked to Fire as a motion picture is its support to lesbianism (Wijegunasingha, 2000). However, Fire compassionately represents the growth of an adoring sexual bond between two women, and this is not the reason for movie's achievement. The movie's artistic influence is based on its appeal for freethinking, affectionate and psychologically nourishing relationships between human beings (Wijegunasingha, 2000).