Water is the final instalment in a blazing trilogy from the wicked-woman of Indian cinema. Mehta made contact with lesbian desire in Fire (1996) and followed up with a scorching denouncement of racism in Earth (1998). Getting her third film made, an indictment of arranged marriage and widow-hood, was spectacularly difficult: extremists disrupted the shoot, Hindu authorities nearly succeeded in getting the project closed entirely.

Chillingly beautiful footage opens the story in Varanassi, a holy city in which an eight year old girl has become a widow. Now untouchable, she is sent to an ashram with other widows to live in poverty until they die. Even here caste has its place as the women hold devout faith to a religion that takes them as victims. “It is this ignorance that is our misfortune.” The speaker talks of his time, 1938, but could as easily be talking about today given the film’s distressingly contemporary feel. It’s a frustrating subject that challenges our own belief structures and culpability, raising many issues, resolving few.

As the story develops beyond the young girl and the ashram – a love affair on one hand, prostitution on another – Water evolves into a meditation on elemental affairs. Spiritual and emotional drama that takes the Ganges and its power to heal as a muse binds the women physically and socially. Delving into intimate human drama, some scenes teeter on the verge of melodrama but are redeemed in a close that is as stirring as it is despondent. Though not the strongest of the trilogy, Water is still an important work that retains the power to both educate and inspire.

// COLIN FRASER