Water

Since I am stil stuck on the chapter on feminism, another movie that suits the topic is "Water." It might come as a surprise to many people but in south asian culture, arranged marriages were predominant. In fact I had never heard of a love marriage in my entire life. However, good thing is I had never heard of divorces either.

Sadly, though, child marriages were a part of the culture once upon a time and for girls, being a widow meant being ostracized from the society.

This movie tells the story of a young girl who is married at the age of 5 and her husband dies soon after. Even before she knows what marriage is and what husband is, she is forced into a life of denial.

She is separated from her family as per the ritual and sent to a tribe where widows live - they cannot earn for they survive on donations, they cannot eat any fancy food and they have to wear a simple white cotton cloth all their life. Also they have to shave their heads because they are not allowed to look beautiful. They are regarded as bad luck and are not allowed to stroll around the city whenever they want. They cannot particiapte in any social functions or celebrate anything.

And then after few years, a young man falls in love with her. By this time, she is a beautiful woman. All starts going well for her but of course being a widow, it doesnt end well. The movie has one of the most painful endings I have ever seen.

It's a beautiful movie that depicts the harsh reality of women not too long ago. Of course such custom still prevails in certain south asian communities.

An Oscar nominated movie =)

Provoked: Based on a Shocking True Story

It's been a bad week with lots of happening at the same time. Havent had time for studies or movies either. Anyway, I was reading a chapter for my feminist theory class and a movie was constantly at the back of mind.

The chapter was on domestic violence and the movie called provoked suited it very well. It told the story of a young Indian woman who gets married to a guy based in the United Kingdom. What started off as a fairy tale wedding for her, ends up in a nightmare. The woman, who was physically, mentally and sexually abused by her husband for ten years, finally decides to end it all by killing him.

This movie created a huge impact in the south asian community becuase what it portrayed was a reality unknown to many people at the time. Many people from small town get their daughters married to men based in foreign countries thinking theitr daughters are going to have a good life. Unfortunately, most of these marriages end in the abuse of women and often death.

Growing up, I had seen many of these news splashing all over the major newspapers and channels.

This movie does infact a great job of addressing the problem.

Black Hawk Down

Based in the Mogadishu war in Somalia, Black Hawk Down depicts the reality of what goes around in a war. A group of American troops are sent to Mogadishu to capture the warlord, Aiddid. However, a mission that is supposed to take few minutes ends up taking more than a day.

The scene when the Black Hawk comes crashing down is probably one of the best scenes in the movie, and an important one as well. Soon after that, the movie starts catching up and then it's about two sides trying to win the battle.

A soldier who becomes deaf after an explosion is one of my favorite characters in the movie. He not only keeps his spirit high but manages to make us laugh from time to time.

Hence, even though the movie is grim and sad, there are funny sides to it as well.

Iraq For Sale : The war Profiteers

What happens to corporations when countries go to war and people lose their lives? They make money. At least that's what happened during the Iraq war.

While the American soldiers were putting their lives at stake at one command of their president, the American corporations were busy trying to draw every single penny out of the government.

Companies like Halliburton, CACI and Titan managed to draw millions of dollars out of the government for the mediocre service that the provided, while the American soldiers lived in a miserable condition wihtout proper food or water.

As one soldier describes the situation, the companies who catered food were paid a lot of money but the food was only served once a day.

A memebr of one of the companies confessed that the water that was provided to the soldiers was contaminated and if the soldiers didn't die of the enemies bullet, they would have died by drinking the water.

The companies made a lot of money. What's worse is vice president Dick Cheneyused to be int he board of Halliburton and it's belived that he had a great conflict of interest in giving Halliburton the contract.