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Earth

1998, Movie, NR, 104 mins

Earth: Review

EARTH
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If you're at all curious about the roots of the ongoing dispute between Pakistan and India, you could do worse than to watch this sumptuous historical melodrama from Indian-born director Deepa Mehta. The film opens in 1947, on the eve of India's independence from 250 years of British rule, and is set in the city of Lahore, in what is now Pakistan. Eight-year-old Lenny Sethna (Maia Sethna) and her wealthy parents (Kitu Gidwani and Arif Zakaria) are among the small minority of India's Parsee; her nanny and close companion Shanta (Nandita Das) is Hindu. Each day Shanta takes her charge to a nearby public park where Sikhs, Muslims and other Hindus freely associate. There Shanta meets her friend Mr. Singh (Gulshan Grover), a Sihk zookeeper, and her two suitors: masseur Hasan (Rahul Khanna) and ice-cream peddler Dil Navaz (Aamir Khan), both of whom are Muslim. They're all friends, but the impending departure of the British and rumors of the imminent partition of the country into a predominantly Hindu and Sikh India and a Muslim-dominated Pakistan have given rise to tensions among the group. As the fate of Lahore hangs in the balance, age-old hostilities between the different religious groups begin to erupt in acts of horrific violence. The history of India and Pakistan is a complex one, but Mehta's screenplay, based on the novel Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa, is careful to establish just who each character is and what they represent in the larger historical context, even if it means sacrificing narrative momentum and deeper characterization. Easily digestible emblems of India's plight abound: Lenny is first seen smashing a china plate; later she tears a rag doll in two, which Shanta, who's in love with a Muslim, then tries to mend. But the film still casts a spell, thanks in large part to Giles Nuttgens' glowing cinematography and a fine performance by the radiant Das as Shanta, whose sad fate is perhaps the film's strongest emblem of them all. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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