The Politics of Melodrama in Deepa Mehta's 'Water'

Water (2005), the final instalment in Deepa Mehta's 'elemental trilogy', has had in the director's own words, a tumultuous birth. It has taken five years for this third film in the series, following Fire (1996) and Earth (1998), to reach the screen, and it is described as 'one of the most turbulent experiences in filmmaking history'. Water represents the maturation of Mehta as a director capable of marrying political filmmaking with melodrama in order to harness the power of emotional engagement for consciousness-raising.