The conclusion of Deepa Mehta's Elements Trilogy and possibly the director's most beloved work, Water had a particularly fraught production history: the initial shoot was scuttled when the film's Indian sets were burned down by Hindu fundamentalists, forcing Mehta to remount the film three years later, gathering a new cast and shooting secretly in Sri Lanka. Set in Varanasi in the late 1930s, against the backdrop of Gandhi's non-violent protests and campaign to better the condition of women, Water takes place in an ashram where widows both old and young (including a girl of seven) are sent to live out their lives in austerity after the deaths of their husbands. When a beautiful young widow (Lisa Ray) who has been forced into prostitution by the ashram's imperious overseer begins an affair with a wealthy follower of Gandhi, the stage is set for tragedy. At once intimate and epic, Water was an international hit and received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
