Some thoughts on fundamentalism, via Dick Cheney and Deepa Mehta

This all started on a Thursday morning two weeks ago, when I was taking the bus downtown, occasionally scanning the bus news screens (because the bus is all about the future). There was some headline courtesy of Dick Cheney, one of those "Democrats are un-American for talking about the war" statements. And I wondered if Dick Cheney, or the Bush administration for that matter, would ever admit to being wrong about something. Not now, of course. But maybe after 2008, maybe twenty years down the line? Buried in a paragraph of a massive tell-all? Maybe then?

It was hard to imagine, at that point in the morning. Cheney saying he was wrong. Colin Powell saying he was wrong. Bush saying he was wrong. A bit hard to buy. But hey, current political debate is close to needing a version of Godwin's Law that covers McCarthy. Another guy hard-pressed at the time to admit to fault.

That night, I went to see a screening of Water organized by one of those women-in-film groups. Water, as a film, is all right -- the performances are great, the cinematography beautiful, and there are some truly emotional and affecting moments that stick with you. But it's also very much a melodrama, and some of the more heavy-handed beats really got on my nerves, ultimately leaving me cold.

Afterwards, there was a Q&A with the director, and it turns out Deepa Mehta is awesome -- smart and funny and articulate. One of the things she talked about was her first attempt to make the film, which was abruptly stopped by the violent protests of Hindu fundamentalist groups. Furious and hurt, Mehta put the project away for several years, not wanting to make the movie until her anger had faded -- and when she was ready to begin again, she chose to shoot in Sri Lanka instead of her home country.

The fundamentalists who destroyed the first production were protesting the subject matter: specifically, the treatment of widows demanded by Hindi tradition. Mehta pointed out, though, that the film had been approved for production by the Indian government, and none of the fundamentalist groups involved in the protest had read the script -- they were just told that the film attacked Hinduism, and so they retaliated. Having seen the movie, it does offer some serious challenges to specific tenants of the religion -- but it's handled in a extremely mature way, with what I thought was a great deal of respect towards the faith. While also managing to point out that maybe, just maybe, locking eight-year-old widows away from the outside world is inhumane. Challenging this one idea that maybe, just maybe, we can all agree is wrong.

I wonder if any of the people involved in those early protests of Water will eventually see the movie (it was just released in India, I think). Probably not. Which is why I'm working on a definition of fundamentalism as blind faith's angry little brother, armed and righteous. Earplugs firmly in. The most dangerous kind of belief.

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An aside, from the article linked above:

After two takes into the first shot of the movie, government authorities hustled their way onto the set. Law and order was at risk, they declared, and filming must stop immediately. We were forced to evacuate the location. One key protester had taken a boat out into the middle of the Ganges, consumed poison, tied a rock around his waist, and jumped into the water, yelling that Deepa Mehta and her film were his reason for attempting suicide. Days later the press revealed that the man, who was rushed to the hospital and survived, was a professional suicide attempter, employed by various political parties to attempt his own execution for various political reasons. This had been his sixth suicide attempt, and this was the reason given for closing the film down. Law and order was in jeopardy.

Seriously! A professional suicide attempter. Yeah.

Labels: moving pictures, not quite like the west wing, sisters doing it for themselves

posted by Liz  # 5:53 PM

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