Earth Indo-Canadian Filmmaker Deepa Mehta\'s

Earth

Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta's 1998 film "Earth" about the 1947 partition of India is a topic that had long been neglected by Western filmmakers, even though this event, which was a devastatingly violent event between India and Pakistan, has been described as India's Holocaust and accounts for one of the biggest forced migrations of population in history (White 215). Mehta is able to personalize the global issues of sexuality and nationalism in her film and puts the subject at the level of normal everyday people. Mehta is a unique filmmaker who is able to cross nations and genres with her films. Ignoring what happened in India because it has nothing to do with us is just as ridiculous as generations who weren't alive during Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to forget that it ever happened.

Solipsism is to be egocentric and believe that there is nothing outside of one's self, which is why the man at the Dylan concert calls Dylan a Judas. The man obviously knew what he liked (i.e., the more folksy Dylan) and he was unable to see that Dylan is an artist with growing and changing tastes just as any person has growing and changing tastes. While it is okay to know what one likes, it is not something that one should find a take comfort in because it is what keeps people in the solipsistic frame of mind.

"Earth" is a difficult film to watch because of the fact that it is marked by horrors, but Mehta does not let the general indifference that some people have had towards the subject of this event as a deterrent to making the film in the way in which she wanted. There is a great sense that there is a climate of both cynicism and callous indifference when it comes to the destiny of ordinary people (Phillips). We cannot allow indifference to each other to be nurtured in this world. To not remember this conflict for what it was -- horrific -- is to nurture indifference and to put out a message that what happens in places where we are not concerned does not affect us; but it does affect us.

Barenscott (2) notes that it is because of the high emotion and the intense national stakes involved in remembering the partition conflict between India and Pakistan that the conflict has not been remembered as it should. She states that just giving "a cursory glance at the diverse outpouring of academic scholarship on Partition…reveals that attempts to revisit and recapture such a potent and complex moment of violence remain highly divided and isolated along disciplinary, national, and/or theoretical boundaries" (3). Furthermore, many film critics either wanted to dismiss the film as highly dramatic -- even melodramatic -- or see it as a portrayal that is far from the reality of what really happened. While there were reviewers who did like the film, there was really not middle in terms of likes and dislikes, which makes one believe that people do simply like what they like and that solipsism is alive and well in the world. However, Barenscott notes that the reviews garnered by Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" (1993) were strikingly similar to Mehta's "Earth" (7).

In his discussion of Partition historiography, Padney (Barenscott 7) states:

There is the need to deny the fragmented and ambivalent nature of remembrance, its competing modes of representation, and its implication in existing or future political projects. Moreover, there is a process through which many of these alternative accounts become written off as fiction or 'bad history' -- relegating and marginalizing relevant contributions of Partition experience and remembrance" (Barenscott 7).

Mehta has said that her films are about the difference between conscience and faith. She insists that people have to listen to themselves and be honest with themselves and not accept intolerant ideologies that are at odds with a moral conscience and the realities of life. "Earth" is a perfect example of what she is saying. She had a story to tell that was important to her culture and her heritage and she felt that she needed to get it out -- not only because it was an event that had long been neglected, but just as Spielberg wanted to tell another story about the Holocaust despite the fact that there have been several films over the years on the subject. Mehta was able to make a film about an event that hadn't been covered in films and she was revolutionary in the sense that she told it in the bloodied and violent manner just like what occurred in real life.