Film Review of Love Fire

Deepa Mehta is a Canadian Indian director who was born in Amritsar. "Love Fire" is the first part of the "Elemental Trilogy" directed by her, which is about the lesbian subculture under the Hindu cultural background. There are many cultural details and metaphors in this film. I will dig and interpret it from three angles in this film review. 1. Does the concept of lesbianism exist in Indian traditional culture? When the underground lesbian behavior of Ruada and Sido was discovered by ashok, Ruada said, "There is no word in our language that can describe what we are." There is not even a word in our language to describe our relationship. Although according to the setting in the movie, their mother tongue should be Hindi, but this is not necessarily the case in Sanskrit, one of the main carrier languages of Indian traditional classical culture. In Sanskrit classics, there is more than one word to describe lesbians. In Caracas? In hitā, the tomboy among lesbians (that is, the masculine side, sita in the film) is called "nā r:? Answer? Hi "("linked women "or" combined women "); In the famous Indian sex bible kāMAS tra, lesbians are named Pu Ru? arū pi？ (1) (literally translated as' masculine woman') or svairi? 1. (Independent female). In this love sutra, there are some parts that specifically mention women's love, including the use of sexual devices to "make each other cool" (K2.8.11-41). It can be seen that lesbianism existed in the "orthodox" Indian culture of Brahmanism a long time ago, but we can only prove its existence in the literature here, and it is hard to say whether it has a certain degree of practice in society. As for why Radha said such things, I think it can be reflected more or less. First, there is a certain gap between the records in ancient books and the real existence in society; Secondly, it is obvious that "Chi Qing" is also a subculture in India. Just as we can read stories of broken sleeves and cracked peaches in our ancient books, many comrades and lesbians are still straight in real life. In fact, there are quite a few people who represent the Brahman orthodoxy in the film (including ashok and his mother and old lady). These people obviously dislike and hate the "homosexual feelings" of Sido and Ruada. This is completely consistent with Indian orthodox Brahmin thought. In Manusm code (Manusm? In ti), lesbians are more serious "crimes" than gay men, and the punishment for this behavior in this code is also very severe. If a virgin pokes off another virgin's membrane with her hand, the former will be whipped. If a non-virgin stabbed a virgin, the woman would be even worse: shaved her head, cut off two fingers (which is a bit harsh to think about), and was thrown on the back of a donkey to swim the street. 2. The three men in the movie Jatin is a playboy, and his brother Ashok (from Sanskrit A? Oka, "painless", is an ascetic monk. Both of them represent the way of life advocated by Brahmanism, but they have gone through different stages on the road of life (var? ā? Rama dharma)； This division of life stages is only applicable to the other three high castes other than the sudra caste, and it is uniformly recognized as "De Weijia", that is, the second birth (the second generation). For an orthodox Hindu, these four stages are 1, while students (? Me? Ya); 2, housekeeping (g? has tha)； 3. The stage of becoming a monk living in the jungle, namely "forest habitat" (Vā napratha); 4, complete birth stage, or "hermit" (sa? nyāsin)； At different stages of life, everyone needs to do different things that conform to Buddhism. Jia Ding is in the "housekeeping" stage, in which the main purpose is to reproduce and satisfy his real desires (including sexual desire kāma and the pursuit of material things Alta). Therefore, in order to satisfy their own desires, Jardine fooling around with girls in China, and their little servant Monton masturbates by watching porn, which is far less bad than the lesbians in the movies. This can be clearly reflected in the performance of the old lady who represents the absolute orthodox ideology: she spits in Ruada's face, but she can tolerate Monton watching the "little movie" SY in front of her, and her son Jia Ding going out to find a mistress (and it is also a foreign country, which is unacceptable to many orthodox Hindus). I think the old lady is a barometer of orthodox consciousness, which is a highlight of the film. Every time the bell in her hand rings, you will find that something doesn't conform to what Brahmins call "orthodoxy". As for Jatin's brother Ashok, he is in the stage of becoming a monk. At this stage, according to Hokkekyo's regulations, the head of the family should enter a state of "retirement" for the family after the completion of secular "tasks" such as carrying on the family line. Ideally, he should go into the jungle to think about the problem of birth, so as to get rid of his material and physical desires and reach a state of liberation from the cycle of life and death, but he is not completely divorced from his family. But in the movie, it seems that we only see that ashok has joined an "organization", which may be regarded as a compromise made by Indian traditional culture when accepting the influence of globalization. At least its spirit is still there. Ashok said the disadvantages of desire more than once, such as "Desire brings destruction" and "Desire is the root of all evil". These thoughts are the orthodoxy at this stage of life. Jatin and Ashok undoubtedly represent the orthodox life principles of Brahmins. Although Jardine is a bit playful and a bit like a womanizer, he didn't jump out of this big box. In fact, I think the director's setting Jardine as such a playboy fooling around with foreigners is a clever setting (he himself made a double mistake), because it can better reflect how "evil" lesbian behavior is to Brahman orthodox ideology. 3.Radha and Sita Our two lesbian heroines Radha and Sita are undoubtedly the souls in the film. Many unorthodox acts directed by them are expressed through metaphors. Here I give two quite obvious examples. (1)Sita, S and t ā and T lace Sita are definitely not the names given by the director casually in Satī and movies. As a tomboy in the film, her name, like the heroine in the Indian epic Ramayana, is Rāma's wife Sā tā. In Indian culture, sοtā is the most typical and standardized perfect wife. These behaviors of sοtā are STR and dharma (the way of women) advocated by Brahmanism. It should be noted that in Brahmin classical culture, whether a woman is loyal or not can be considered through a ceremony called Sati. To put it bluntly, it is to jump into the fire. If you don't hang up, you are innocent, just like the s and T ā in Ramayan. Later, this behavior became a way of martyrdom for widows after their husbands died. Although it is not very common, it still exists in a certain amount, especially in Bangladesh and other places (it is said that there have been news reports in Nepal in the past two years that widows have been martyred). Siddhartha in the film is a declaration of war against Brahmanism orthodoxy. The film mentioned Ramayana more than once, and also mentioned the perfection of S and T ā in the epic. The most obvious parallel contrast between Sita in our movie and her in the epic is the metaphor of Sadie at the end of the movie: ashok was heartbroken, suggesting that he was "dead" inside and set a fire, suggesting that Sita entered the "Sadie mode", but she survived and resolutely walked out of the fire. This is a very awesome bridge in the movie! This is a serious violation of Brahman orthodoxy. (2)karva chauth Festival still needs a little background introduction. Married women in India usually pray for their husbands or pray for their divine power. Akti's behavior is called vrata or saubaghya in Sanskrit, and one of the main ways to accomplish this blessing or strength is short fasting. Karva chauth Festival was played in the film for quite a long time. To put it bluntly, this festival is a festival for women to pray for their husbands through fasting. One day between sunrise and moonrise, she can't eat or drink, otherwise her husband won't get the blessing of prayer (and may even die immediately. See the legend of Veervati). At the end of the movie, Sita couldn't help it at night. She wanted to drink water, so Ruada gave her the tribute water without saying anything-just as the blessing was about to be completed! There is no doubt that this is another ruthless contempt for orthodox Brahmanism. Sido kicked her husband's interests aside, and also showed the "deep affection" of Ruada and Sido. In fact, there are many places worth discussing in the film. For example, radha's infertility is only caused by "no eggs", which is somewhat alluding to her lesbian identity. I seem to have written a lot unconsciously. This should be the best Indian movie I have seen in recent days. OST is great, with many cultural excavations, sharp themes and good-looking actors. There is no doubt that it is five stars.