Earth Film Review

Mahatma Gandhi once said that “when fear takes over, the spirit is ignored and we focus all of our attention on the point of danger, thus losing the capacity to find any courage, sanity, or peace inside ourselves.” Earth by Deepa Mehta, is the second film of the elemental trilogy, and is about “the largest and most terrible exchange of population in history” filmed in a way that does not correspond to a typical South Asian film. Earth depicts the tension and the resulting violence surrounding the British division of the country into an independent India and Pakistan. The partition is represented through a love story between three people, told through an eight year-old Parsee girl named Lenny-Baby.

The film offers a powerful history lesson of how religion is used as an excuse to seize land and emit violence against another people in the name of nationalism, as each side is overcome with hatred and thrown into war against their own friends. Muslim was against Hindu-Sikh, with each side being guilty of massacring, kidnapping, and raping each other. Along with being an historical piece, it is also a tragic love story with a similar ending to that of Romeo and Juliet, both lovers are separated which represents the partitioning of India. Lenny's nanny, Shanta, is a Hindu who has a lively and diverse band of admirers (Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs) who meet regularly in a local park. Two men that are in love with her are the clever Ice Candy Man and Hasan masseur, both of which are Muslim. Despite their differences, these men get along with each other until it becomes clear that Lahore will be part of Pakistan leaving the Hindus and Sikhs in danger if they were to stay. The love triangle in this movie serves to represent each of the conflicting views of the people during the partition. In the scene, the Hindu and Muslim principals are witnessed in the act of love by the already jealous Ice Candy Man, a display that greatly inflames his already venomous soul that leads him to also seek revenge. The audience cannot help but conflicted since Dil (Ice Candy Man) had lost his sister and the love of his life but at the same time he had betrayed Shanta and killed Hasan. Towards the end of the movie the audience cannot help but feel hatred towards Dil Navaz because he has deceived Lenny-Baby who admired him and led the angry mob of Muslims to kidnap Shanta.

In traditional Bollywood cinema scenes and themes of sexuality and public displays of affection are coyly shunned even in the form of a simple kiss. Whereas Mehta, is not shy about displaying the act of love within her films, although the body parts are discreetly hidden. The film implies that director Deepa Mehta holds