Two reviews of the film "Earth"
Earth
Reviewed by C.J.S. Wallia
Earth - Unforgettable
By Zarminae Ansari
I agreed with Zarminae Ansari’s review of the film “Earth” more than C.J.S. Wallia’s. Ansari gave a balanced and fair review. Wallia seemed more interested in tearing down the film and discrediting its message.
In the first paragraph of his review Wallia is quite critical of Deepa Mehta, the director of “Earth”. Wallia writes “It follows her controversial "Fire," which was severely criticized for presenting a distorted view of Hindu culture”. Wallia goes on to hammer the film for being “simplistic” and “weak”. He also gives a laundry list of historical assertions that purport to show that the role of Sikhs is underrepresented in the film.
I got the impression that Wallia was exhibiting bias on behalf of Sikhs. Out of curiosity I ‘googled’ Wallia and found another example of him condemning a director for portraying Sikhs (in his view) negatively. He went so far as to allege racism. In this case the film was “Mission Kashmir” and the protest appeared on the web site of the Sikh Times. Their response was to call the film “benign”.
Ansari, on the other hand, realized that “Earth” was a dramatization based on actual events and not a documentary. She weighs the film on it merits and does not appear to have an agenda. To this end she wrote “the movie will undoubtedly offend both sides, since it spares neither, nor holds one as morally superior to the other’.
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I agree and I don't agree. If I wasn't looking to get emotionally involved, I'd agree with Ansari. However, I didn't think the film, as a film, had any depth, regardless of the histories of the people being portrayed. It was, most definitely, a dramatization, and I think what Wallia was trying to say was that without depth, you don't feel anything, and that's why it felt simplistic. But yes, he was a little harsh.
ReplyDeleteWallia, as you note, does appear to be “exhibiting bias on behalf of Sikhs”. A good portion of his ‘review’ was focused on the “historical role of the Sikhs in the freedom struggle” (Wallia). Further, he proffers that Earth “fails as a film” due to Mehta’s “deliberate distortions and simplistic presentation of the tragedy-laden partition of India”. Essentially, it would appear that this ‘simplicity’ was the objective of Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel and Deepa Mehta’s film. However, Wallia does infuse a perspective worth exploring, “Mehta’s film inflicts a cruel travesty: It blames the victim”.
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