Married off by arrangement, young Sita moves in with Jatin, a video library owner she doesn't know. In the same house Jatin's elder brother Ashok and his wife Radha run a fast-food restaurant. The proceedings are watched over by the silent, infirm grandmother, Biji. While Sita is still settling into the family, certain breaks with long-standing tradition become apparent: against the expectations of his family, Jatin does not break off his affair with a Chinese woman, who does not want to be a baby-machine in a large family. Ashok and Radha are cursed with a childless marriage, and Mundu, the manservant, takes delight in watching hard-core pornos in the presence of helpless Biji.

While the men are out of the house – Jatin with his mistress, Ashok with his guru – the two sisters-in-law come closer together. Tradition and rebellion meet head-on in Radha and Sita, but not without mutual understanding. Between the two women a love develops, and neither personal consequences nor family pressures can dampen their passion...

• A country's first feature film about a homosexual couple, and it is about women, not men (after a 35-minute documentary Khush about Indian lesbians and some gay men, and the 11-minute video production BOMgAY). This is because Fire deals more with women's roles in mainly Indian society, rather than with any lesbian subculture. The same old story of a lesbian film, which is disputed as being such by the film makers? Certainly director Deepa Mehta and star of the film Shabana Azmi are opposed to this categorisation. Fire advocates tolerance etc., the usual stuff, and so is to be understood in a "humanistic" sense. When considering the potential audience, film makers are often more conservative than their product, as Philadelphia, which tried to distance itself from the North American gay scene, demonstrated. In this light it is understandable and forgivable for Nandita Das as Sita, in comparison to Shabana Azmi as Radha, not to come across totally convincingly as a lesbian, if she is not supposed to be one.

In its social critique, Fire is laden with symbols, although this is a society steeped in symbols. Also the dreamy satire on the gender roles in an old fairy-tale is good for a few laughs. Apart from that, the socio-critical film fulfils all the expectations of its (western) audiences, except that it was filmed in English, or rather "Hinglish". Not, we are assured by the director who emigrated to Canada in 1973, for any commercial reasons, but because her mother tongue, like that of millions of other middle-class children, happens to be English as a result of British colonialism. A butch-femme dance scene with Sita and Radha shines in innovative radiance, as the women not only slip into the relevant roles, but into the relevant Chinese roles.

An encouraging women's film from a society which suppresses more than the West knows from experience.

Filmdata

Deutsche Version