Rebel with a Cause: Realism and Resistance in Deepa Mehta’s Cinematic World
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56062/Keywords:
Deepa Mehta, realism, rebellion, feminism, postcolonial cinema, gender, patriarchy.Abstract
The filmography of Deepa Mehta stands out as a unique niche in the discourse of Indian and world cinema. Her work as a diasporic auteur cuts across the sidelines of nation, gender and identity and critiques the orthodox of patriarchy and culture at the same time. The paper questions the main movies of Mehta, Fire (1996), Earth (1998) and Water (2005) to shed some light on how she balances insurgency with realism. It suggests that Mehta realism is not only a formal aesthetic tool but rather a tool that is political in essence an act of resistance against the silence, censorship and ingrained hierarchies. The paper, therefore, arrives at a conclusion that the films of Mehta are a revision of the concept of realism as rebellion, which gives voice to the oppressed and discloses the gaps in the traditional understanding of Indian modernity.
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