"Plain" filmmaker is not what you'd call this director whose debut film Sam And Me, found critical mention in the prestigious Palm d'Or category at Cannes in 1992. Who overnight found herself in the $500,000 directors league when producer Christina Jennings commissioned her to direct the $11 million Jessica Tandy and Bridget Fonda road flick Camilla, in 1993. Whom George Lukas of Star Wars fame chose to direct the $2-million budget episodes of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for ABC television.
Well, the star is back in Delhi to film Fire: a film about the lives and loves of a middle-class family in Lajpat Nagar, starring Sha-bana Azmi, Nandita Bose, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Jaaved Jaffrey, Ranjit Choudhary, besides NSD director Ram Gopal Bajaj. "It's about contemporary not exotic India. No snakes and ladders, Raj and Rajasthan here. It's about chhole bhature and cellular phones, about what happens when tradition and modernity clash head-on," explains Mehta. Why Fire? "Because that clash is never painless. Fire is about jalan: the angst that informs contemporary lives. Especially of Indian women."
The relationship of three of whom with each other and the world without forms the subject matter of her film. There's Bijee, played by newcomer Kushal Rekhi, 78. She's the mute matriarch who rules in silence, after whom the family's Bijee's Pure Vegetarian Takeout is named. There's Radha, the elder daughter-in-law played by Azmi: irate, withdrawn, sexually frustrated with spouse Ashok, played by Kharbanda. Celibate, he's turned away from her to godman Pitajee, played by Bajaj. Then there's the second daughter-in-law, Sita, played by Bose. Arche-typal Indian wife, fervent believer in the adage "romance begins AFTER marriage", aware that will never happen for husband Jatin, played by Jaffrey, is in love with sultry Julie, the Chinese hairdresser who works at Darling Beauty Parlour. That photograph in his wallet which she angrily throws in his face, tells her all....
"What do women 'in a situation' do? Despair or find strength? How does rage, sexual frustration express itself? How do people make their quietus? These issues are examined in the film," explains Mehta. "I drew on second memories to understand, formulate answers," she reveals. "Radha transfers her fret: that frenzied preoccupation with chopping vegetables just so, cleaning, clamouring at servants is about rage, sublimation. Many women clean the clutter without to conceal the clutter within, try to direct the course of external lives to compensate for their inability to conduct their internal lives as per plan." Sita hopscotches her way out of her dilemmas: forges a nurturing relationship with Radha, comes to the reali-sation that her life has meaning beyond the matrimonial morass she's in. Bijee's is the proverbial third eye, ever watchful, knowing. "She's tradition but not weak or retrogressive," says Mehta. "I'm saying women don't necessarily need men to be relevant, complete. Matrimony is a phase, not the finale of their lives."
Mehta fights the Woman's Woman label: "As a woman director there's no deflection of focus. What I might do instinctively as a woman is fuss less about frame, more about the frame of mind I get on film. The men in my film are equally important, their characters are not simplistically delineated. There's texture there." Also colour. To which she reacts sensuously: "Colour palettes are integral to the emotion: the vernal green of spinach, the lush yellow of haldi, the vital red of lal mirch. These constitute the environment of the senses. People absorb the colour of emotions subliminally."
Emotion is one thing; articulation another. "We're keeping it minimal. I did the screenplay, Piyush Mishra has done the dialogue. It's simple, not simplistic. Audiences are not buddhus. Complexity is communicable through simplicity."
The kind of simplicity she's achieved in her life. "The choice was between making this independently financed $800,000 film or directing Wynona Ryder in a Warner Brother's film for a $500,000 fee." What if the gamble fails? "Dad, a film distributor, always says: You can't predict two things—when you will die and whether your movie will fail. I'd much rather die doing what I want to do than vice versa!" Shooting begins January-end. Win or lose? Either way, the countdown has begun.
