EARTH

Lahore, 1947. Lenny (Maia Sethna), a crippled Parsee girl, has a privileged life with a loving father and mother (Kitu Gidwani), and a kind, beautiful Hindu nanny, Shanta (Nandita Das). However, this idyllic existence is soon shattered by the departitioning of India by the British. The country undergoes a painful split into Independent India and Pakistan that takes the form of religious warring, with Hindus and Sikhs attacking Muslims and vice versa. Lenny is forced to witness the destruction of her world and the monstrous bloodshed that ensues. Over one million people are killed in sectarian violence. A mass migration takes place, with six million Muslims making their way to Pakistan while five million Hindus and Sikhs head to India. Fifty years later, the conflicts remain, bringing the two countries to the brink of nuclear war.

Writer-director Deepa Mehta is to be commended for even considering tackling this hugely troublesome, unwieldy subject. Earth, photographed by Giles Nuttgens, has moments of entrancing beauty, as well as nightmarish horror. Additionally, it's interlaced, in Indian film tradition, with sprightly musical numbers that, remarkably, do not jar in this context. (A.R. Rahman's mesmerizing music is a definite boon.) For those unversed in 20th-century history of India, however, it proves rather confusing. There's a definite need for more delineation of the political situation, as well as the differing religious sects. A comic scene wherein a mountebank 'talks' to Allah via telephone is hardly enough. The initial, deep conflicts among Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs are expressed largely through intimate arguments at mealtimes that explode into threats of violence. While this conveys the uneasy harmony that existed before departitioning, much more is needed in terms of a larger understanding. The family scenes, as well as those involving Shanta and her Muslim suitors, The Masseur (Rahul Khanna) and his rival, Ice Candy Man (Aamir Khan), have an overall blandness that prevents any deep involvement with the characters. Mehta doesn't stint on the mayhem, and it's hard to shake off scenes like a man being torn asunder between two cars, or a train filled with slaughtered children and gunny sacks filled with women's breasts. But the film plays more like an incendiary melodrama than a truly moving indictment of man's inhumanity to man. In this respect, Earth resembles Mehta's Fire, which depicted the senseless brutalization of Indian women by men. There's no gainsaying the director's good intentions, but she somehow falls dramatically short when tackling these harrowing themes. It's simply not enough just to show acts of unthinkable cruelty. (Perhaps documentaries would be a more effective platform for her.)

With the exception of Sethna, who gives a rather inept performance, the cast performs admirably. Additionally, Das, Khanna, Khan and Gidwani are four of the most beautiful actors on the screen today. They all possess a wealth of charm and talent; it's just a shame that their characters have no real psychological depth. Das and Khanna are mere gorgeous victims of circumstance. Khan's metamorphosis from enchanting friend to all to murderous betrayer doesn't ring true, despite all the atrocities he witnesses being perpetrated against his kind. Gidwani can only ineffectually cluck her tongue over the Parsees' noncommital stance ( 'I'm tired of this neutral position').

--David Noh