September 10, 1999

FILM REVIEW; India Torn Apart, as a Child Sees It

By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Deepa Mehta's sorrowful film ''Earth,'' the second in a projected trilogy of fire, earth and
water, is bathed in a deep golden light that at moments recalls the orange sky silhouetting the
sweaty faces of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable in ''Gone With the Wind'' during the burning of
Atlanta. This amber glow gives the film, which remembers the tragic events surrounding the
partition of India in 1947, a ruddy twilit sensuality along with a sense of nocturnal foreboding.

Toward the end of the film, as Hindus and Muslims who have lived together peacefully in the
(now Pakistani) city of Lahore, begin butchering one another and setting fires, you have a
sinking feeling of helplessness. Now that the evil genie of suppressed ethnic hatred has been
let out of the bottle and the cycle of eye-for-an-eye violence and retaliation has begun, there
is no turning back.

''Earth,'' adapted from Bapsi Sidhwa's semi-autobiographical novel ''Cracking India,'' views
these events through the eyes of 8-year-old Lenny Sethna (Maia Sethna), the pampered
daughter of an affluent Parsi family in Lahore. The Parsi community, descended from
Muslims who fled Persia in the ninth century, became closely aligned with the British
colonialists in India. During the partition they avoided persecution by adopting a neutral
stance that Lenny's father compares to Switzerland's neutrality during World War II.

Looking at major historical events through the eyes of a child has its advantages and
disadvantages. There's nothing like an innocent child's-eye perspective on adult violence to
underline its tragic and senseless aspects. One of the film's most stunning moments occurs
after a train has arrived in Lahore filled with the bodies of massacred Muslim men and
children along with gunnysacks filled with the severed breasts of Muslim women. After the
news of the massacre has spread, Lenny naively asks a close Muslim family friend known as
the Ice Candy Man (Aamir Khan) who lost his two sisters in the massacre if their body parts
were in one of the sacks.

But a child's perspective on such monumental events inevitably cannot do them full justice.
The movie's history and politics are mostly laid out in conversations that the little girl
overhears. Even though the movie has scenes that don't include Lenny, the people who loom
large in her life lack the complexity of grown-up characters examined from an adult point of
view.
As the story begins, the British have just announced the partition of India into two countries
(predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan), and the members of the
Sethna household, which welcomes all sects, are worrying about the future. During a dinner
party, one of the guests, an imperious British official, disdainfully predicts havoc and gets into
a fight with a Sikh (Sikhism combined elements of Hinduism and Islam) after sneering at
what he calls Sikh fanaticism. The quarrel offers just a hint of the horrors to come.

Lenny's world revolves around her nanny, Shanta (Nandita Das), a beautiful young Hindu
woman with several suitors. One is Dil Navaz, the Ice Candy Man, who is a voice of reason
and compassion in the movie until the slaughter of his two sisters drives him mad with
vengeance. The man Shanta eventually chooses, Hasan (Rahul Khanna), known as the
Masseur, is a gentle, handsome Muslim who invents oils made from pearl dust and fish eggs.
So deep is his love of Shanta (the two have an exquisite love scene) that he agrees to switch
his faith from Muslim to Hindu and take her to safety in India.

Lenny remains unaware of the gathering storm until the streets of Lahore swarm with rioters
and arsonists stoking fires with gasoline. As the violence escalates and the news of atrocities
enflames everyone, the neutrality of the Sethna household and Shanta's safety become
increasingly imperiled.

''Earth'' is a powerful and disturbing reminder of how a civilization can suddenly crack under
certain pressures. We have only to look at the Balkans and Northern Ireland to find the same
cycle of violence being re-enacted. During the period of India's partition, nearly 12 million
Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs migrated across the newly established borders and more than one
million died or were maimed in the interethnic violence. The aftershocks resound to this day.

EARTH

Directed by Deepa Mehta; written (in Hindi, Urdu, Parsi and Punjabi, with English subtitles)
by Ms. Mehta, based on the novel ''Cracking India,'' by Bapsi Sidhwa; director of
photography, Giles Nuttgens; edited by Barry Farrell; music composed by A. R. Rahman,
with lyrics by Javed Akhtar; production designer, Aradhana Seth; produced by Ms. Mehta
and Anne Masson; released by Zeitgeist Films. Running time: 99 minutes. This film is not
rated.

WITH: Aamir Khan (Dil Navaz), Nandita Das (Shanta), Rahul Khanna (Hasan), Maia Sethna
(Lenny Sethna), Kitu Gidwani (Bunty Sethna), Kulbushan Kharbanda (Imam Din), Gulshan
Grover (Mr. Singh), Arif Zakaria (Rustom Sethna) and Pavan Malhotra (Butcher).

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