Movie: Earth

Actors: Aamir Khan, Nandita Das, Rahul Khanna, Maia Sethna
Director: Deepa Mehta, Producer:

The stunned audience stays in its seats well after the last credits roll by. Aside from subdued sniffles around the room, there is silence. As the lights
slowly brighten, the first few people to regain

their poise begin to clap. Soon the 260-seat theatre resounds with applause.

At this sold-out New York screening in mid-December, it is clear that Canadian director Deepa Mehta`s film "Earth" has firmly wedged itself into the
conscience of its audience. Coming at the heels of the controversy caused by Mehta`s film "Fire" in India, "Earth," the second in Mehta`s trilogy "Fire,
Earth, Water," will most certainly fan the flames for many nationalist types. Set in Lahore and showing the Indian partition through the eyes of a little
Parsi girl called Lenny (Mia Sethna), "Earth" pulls no punches in its depiction of the madness rampant on all sides.

Although the context is Indian, Earth`s message has relevance for many conflicts around the world, said producer David Hamilton, answering a question
from the audience after the screening. "We`re trying to express something that`s very human," he said.

That very human something, the film shows, is the animal that lies caged inside every person. The zoo lion that haunts the little girl Lenny`s nightmares,
and which is left keeperless when its Sikh caretaker flees Lahore, stands as the image of the beast inside every man. Left unchecked, it has the potential
to commit unimaginable horrors. Partition`s mix of ideology and politics allows this inner beast to run amok; whatever our ideological differences, in this
we are the same.

"Earth" shows the disintegration of a close circle of friends who
regularly gather in a Lahore park. The motley group of Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus and Christians is held together not only by friendship and humor but by
common admiration for the only woman in the group, an 18-year-old Hindu called Shanta (Nandita Das). More commonly referred to Ayah, Shanta, like
many other characters in the story - her lover Masseur (Rahul Khanna), or the complicated, shape-shifting Ice-Candy-Man (Amir Khan) - is named
after the role she plays in the life of the narrator Lenny.

Lenny accompanies her beautiful Ayah to the gatherings in the park, and observes the ways of grown-up people through shrewd eight-year-old eyes. As
talk of Pakistan increases, she tries to understand the growing insanity around her. Her bewilderment begins with the literal. "Can one break a country?"
she asks her mother, staring down at the china plate she has deliberately shattered on the floor. But her rather literal confusion soon grows into torment
over the violence`s impact on her friends and her own self-consciously neutral Parsi household. Friends move away or disappear. A little boy at a fallen
women`s camp recounts his mother`s rape and murder with heart-breaking calm. And Lahore burns with the betrayal of past friends.

Based on the award-winning Bapsi Sidhwa book released as
"Ice-Candy-Man" (1988) in the subcontinent and United Kingdom, and as "Cracking India" (1991) in North America, "Earth" received a standing
ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival last October.

Director Mehta`s previous film, "Fire" (1996), is remarkable for its slow, contemplative, liquid feel. Many of its scenes exude a soft gold light. This must
be a Mehta penchant, for parts of Earth dissolve into the same gold liquidity: skin, eyes, hair, all gleam with soft diffused light, and the sunlight streaming
in through open windows bathes the actors in a sensuous glow. One feels like
stretching out an arm and immersing one`s hand in the warm honey of
the screen.

But do not be fooled into thinking that this softness translates into the soft-peddling of Partition`s reality. Mehta transposes the peace at home and the
good-natured camaraderie of the park with scenes of stark fear as the voices of distant mobs rise like thunder, coming closer and closer. When violence
explodes, it can be drippingly graphic. One scene of bloodshed shot outdoors, Rahul Khanna reports, was so realistic that some hopeful vultures began
circling overhead between takes. Or the violence can be horrifying in its suggestion, peeking from the corner of the camera, like the inert leg of a Muslim
man ripped apart between two jeeps controlled by a howling Hindu mob.

A Hindu herself, Mehta stays true to the objective Parsi perspective of the book by showing Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs as both victims and aggressors.
But it is precisely this divided responsibility that is making some people who have seen the film very upset. Although the audience response at the
December showing was overwhelmingly positive, previous showings of "Earth" have ruffled
feathers among audience members regardless of religion. With some
Muslim and Hindu viewers alike, it seems each side believes the movie
over-emphasizes its community`s role in Partition`s insanity.

In New York, though, the crowd of elegantly dressed expatriates seemed to accept the movie`s message of collective madness. "I`ve been through that
experience," said Dru Gidwani, a cultured sari-clad lady in the New York audience that December night. Vijaya Allen, originally from Delhi, who had
friends that migrated to Pakistan, agreed: "The movie was very vivid for me. Some parts were very realistic." Several other older audience members, all
equally effected by memories raised by the movie, offered their own experiences of Partition in response. The film may even offer a kind of catharsis.

The cast of "Earth" is itself a rather motley crew of Parsis, Hindus and Muslims. In an intensely complex performance that moves from costumed
tomfoolery to frightening cruelty, Amir Khan plays the Ice-Candy-Man, a young Muslim ice-lolly seller with kohled eyes and a swaggering attitude who
is in love with the beautiful Hindu Ayah. Nandita Das, displaying new maturity since her role opposite Shabana Azmi in "Fire", combines beguiling
authority and coyness to deliver a charming Ayah that surpasses any reader`s imagination. In the book, Ayah was chocolate brown, stunning, loving, an
innocent man-magnet - Das is all that and more. Ayah, the gentle Muslim Masseur (Rahul Khanna), and the self-assured Ice-Candy-Man form the
love triangle of the movie. Khanna combines longing and sensitivity for an endearing performance.

Mehta picked Mia Sethna, who plays eight-year-old Lenny, intuitively out of nearly 100 other auditions. "Mia`s mother had died a few months before,"
Hamilton said. A sensitive girl, Sethna had become increasingly withdrawn. "Her father allowed her to do this film so she would come out of her shell and
get into contact with other women," Hamilton explained. Sethna is a pixie-ish, demanding Lenny, devoted to her Ayah, adoring of Ice-Candy-Man, and
jealous of Masseur - and distressingly aware of the changes in her world.

The script for "Fire" has attracted some criticism because it is in English and for some, this "compromises its authenticity." The script for "Earth", on the
contrary, maintains its integrity by allowing its characters to speak to each other in the dialect that comes most naturally: servants in Punjabi and Hindi,
their Parsi employers in Gujrati and English. English subtitles offer relief to less linguistically diverse viewers.

Well before she read "Cracking India", Mehta had decided to make a trilogy called "Fire, Earth, Water" - all elements, she says, that can both nurture
and destroy. When she stumbled upon a copy of Bapsi Sidhwa`s book in a Seattle bookstore, Mehta realized she had found the true "Earth."

Through a mutual acquaintance, Mehta contacted Sidhwa after finishing the book. They talked for an hour. "Deepa carved `Earth` out of the book," says
Sidhwa. "The movie is her cinematic vision of the book." Mehta dropped many of the book`s minor - and colourful - characters for the script, paring down
the story only to what was perceived as essential. And she made some characters into composites, turning a minor character like the Masseur of the
book into the well-rounded lead played by Khanna. As a result, "Earth" gives the love triangle between Masseur, Ayah and Ice-Candy-Man a larger
focus than "Cracking India."

Is there a disparity between Mehta`s vision and Sidhwa`s? Although
Sidhwa adds wistfully, "I do miss some of the characters," she approves of Mehta`s script. "My mind is plastic, and allows for the accomodation of
various forms to inhabit my characters. If another actor playing Ayah or Ice-Candy-Man appears tomorrow in a TV series, I will as easily accept that
image," she says.

Although the script and the book are set in Lahore, the film was shot in Delhi. The accepted explanation has been that the Pakistani government refused
permission for the film to be shot in Lahore until it was too late. But producer Hamilton had another, unique reason for the city substitution. Some of the
most important scenes in the film needed to be taken from rooftops to show an expanse of the roofs of neighbouring houses. Hamilton explained, "There
were too many satellite dishes in Lahore to do rooftop scenes!"

One would not expect any filmi songs to come out of "Cracking India" and there are none - sort of. There are a couple of occasions - a gleeful kite-flying
scene at Basant, and a marriage celebration - where characters in the movie sing a stanza or two. But with an original score by A. R. Rehman, the music
and songs are far from mainstream Bollywood. A compact disc of the soundtrack is under production; work on all songs but one has been completed to
the maestro`s satisfaction. The CD should be released some time this year.

To avoid piracy, and its potential for causing millions in losses, only one copy of "Earth" has been in circulation for the few screenings so far. The same
copy flew to Toronto for the International Film Festival in October, then to New York, then to a safe keeping place, and then back to New York in
December.

The film has been shown only twice in the United States. The man
responsible for the Earth showings in New York is Nicholas Platt,
president of the
Asia Society
and before that, American ambassador to
Pakistan. Established in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller and with its head office in New York, the Asia Society
is a nonprofit institution that hosts films,
exhibitions, seminars and conferences to build awareness and dialogue between the cultures of Asia and North America. It hosted
Nawaz Sharif in Washington in December. While it works for the whole of Asia, Platt says, "We take our responsibility to raise the profile of South Asia
seriously."

A diplomat with 33 years` experience in Asia, Platt left the Pakistani ambassadorship to join the Asia Society in late 1992. "Many of my muscles (as
ambassador) are still in use," he smiles. Platt had known and kept in touch with Sidhwa from his years in Pakistan and enjoyed her books. When he
learned one of her works had been turned into a movie, he specially arranged for it to be shown at the society`s elegant headquarters in New York.

A reception with drinks and bowls of nimko preceded the film. After the movie, Bapsi Sidhwa, who received the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 1991, Rahul Khanna,
ex-VJ for MTV Asia and the son of Indian star Vinod Khanna, and David Hamilton answered questions from the audience.

Mehta herself had to cancel a scheduled appearance because she was in India fighting the Shiv Sena-led censorship of "Fire", which depicts a lesbian
relationship between two sisters-in-law (Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das) in middle-class Bombay.

Sidhwa, who has a cameo role in the film as the adult Lenny, laughed when asked if this marked the beginning of an acting career. "It`s my first and last
performance!" she said. Dividing her time between writing and teaching, she spent the last few months as
writer-in-residence at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Her husband, Noshir Sidhwa, a cheerful, balding, grey-haired gentleman in a three-piece suit, also grinned after the screening. "It was great," he said,
adding mischievously, "I`ve been woken up often enough in the middle of the night to be (read some new passages and) asked, `Is this better, or this?`"

Previously narrated on BBC in 10 installments, "Cracking India" is one of the few novels about Partition and the only one written by a Parsi. It is also the
first one of Sidhwa`s four novels to be made into a movie. A few years ago, Merchant Ivory`s Ismail Merchant had expressed interest in filming Sidhwa`s
first novel, "The Bride", set among the Karakoram mountain ranges. Much to her disappointment, the idea was dropped because of the poor availability of
resources in the area.

Earth cost $3.2 million, with most of the finances coming from Canada. The response of Pakistani sources to requests of financial support was, according
to those close to the film, very disappointing. The pattern one sees emerging for the future of films like "Earth" is a discouraging one indeed. To expect
government support and development may be farfetched, but to ask for the support, financial and otherwise, from those who claim to appreciate
Pakistan`s considerable creativity is not.

Many great works undoubtedly lie in wait to be made from the
considerable bank of South Asian literature. Some, like "Earth," need the collaboration of non-Pakistanis to keep their message pure. If nothing else,
adverse reactions to "Earth" will prove - as if any proof was needed - that our distrust of our neighbours automatically translates into a denial of our own
wrongs. It appears that even in the name of art, neither neighbourly differences nor government indifference can be put to rest.

"Earth" will be released in the US in the spring of 1999.