It may be Fire, but is it flamin'?

I saw the movie Fire last night, and all I can issue is a paragraph of disgust. I was appalled at the way the women in the movie acted, as if lack of instant marital bliss was enough of a justification for the revocation of ones vows, traditions, and customs. Call me old fashioned, but the sanctity of marriage is a holy union, and one that is not taken lightly. And yet the two women, Sita and Radha, are not only discontent with their marriages, but discontent with everything that makes them Indian as well. Exposing their weaknesses, while exploiting their husbands’ lenience, they fall into each others embrace as if it is the most natural thing in the world! Living in sin, the two find “comfort” with each other, meanwhile displacing the family dynamic, including causing the expulsion of their faithful servant Mundu and upsetting poor, voiceless Biji. In fact, except for the part when Biji spits in Radha’s face, there is no redeeming part of this movie other than when Radha catches on fire. It’s only a shame she doesn’t die.

It’s also a shame if you agreed with anything I just wrote in the paragraph above. As fun as misogyny, homophobia, and the preservation of ”quaint traditions” might be, there has to be a point where you realize that being a narrow-minded bigot is both unattractive and a little crazy.

Let’s face facts:

1) When is it ever bad when two hot women make out?

And, more seriously (but, to be honest about myself, not too much “more seriously”)

2) Who the hell are you?

Listen, I’m not an expert on hermeneutics (and right off the bat, if you use the Bible to justify your arguments about any topic, and don’t know what the word “hermeneutics” means, you should probably take yourself immediately out of the running to be part of this conversation), but I’m pretty sure that the New Testament (the part of the book where Jesus shakes up and clarifies the practices and beliefs from the Old Testament) never says anything about ripping on other people for what you yourself perceive to be transgressions. There is no call for “sin shouting,” as it were. In fact, when I think back to the eight years of religious education I so joyfully sat through as a child, three main points seemed to have been drilled into my head time and time again:

1) The Golden Rule: Love others as you would love yourself
2) He who is without sin cast the first stone (which therefore eliminates everyone from casting stones)
3) Parents do not appreciate having to pick up their child for making “funny” comments during religion class. Apparently it’s a little embarrassing.

Aside from the third one, the rules that Jesus brought down to Earth were about love and compassion, forgiveness and understanding. And while I think it’s pretty heinous to even think about homosexuality or queerness as being a sin in the first place (and I try not to comment on my hyper-links, but the music alone is worth going to the previous link - it's hilarious), even if it is, it’s not anyone’s place to say so. I realize this might seem offensive to pretty much everyone, but I think it’s important to understand the whole picture, and I see it as this:

If your beliefs are teaching intolerance of others, then what’s that say about your beliefs?

Going back to the movie itself (which, if you’re still reading, you must be thinking to yourself: How the hell do you talk about cinematography after that little diatribe?), it was actually quite stunning in its simplicity and beauty. The dialogue is sparse (which is good, if only because the sound editing was pretty atrocious – of course, it might have been dubbed, but if so, it looked like the actors were speaking English), but effective. The use of color and light created the exotic and erotic well. And of course the parallelism between the repeating story of the god Ram, Sita, and the trial by fire with the actual narrative helps show why it is so important that Radha doesn’t die in the fire. Her love, in the end, is pure, and despite that, she must be exiled. It is interesting that the character named Sita in the movie and the character in the folk-story do not line up. I’m not quite sure what the point of that was except maybe to make it not so obvious, and therefore, blatantly cheesey.

Probably more important than anything is that although the movie is about discovering and giving in to desire and physical pleasure, the very acts are rarely seen. If they are, it is only through glimpses and muted scenes, showing how very unimportant the sex act is after all. It is the desire that is important, and that’s why Sita says to Radha: “There is no word in our language that can describe us. How we feel for each other.” Showing sex would be a way to try to define it, and you really can’t. Oddly enough, the most graphic sexual act are the two scenes in which Mundu masturbates while watching porno in the presence of Biji. I think it’s telling that these scenes are both disturbing and comical.

A few things did bother me about the movie, but they are more technical matters more than anything. First, although I had a good idea what the movie was about, I was still surprised that not enough had transpired to indicate that Sita was in love with Radha. It seemed very sudden to me. That might tie into the fact that I felt the movie was a bit disjointed at times. Scenes were provided almost as snapshots instead of continuous narrative, and sometimes I thought more information might have done us, as the audience, a bit of good. But overall, the story was provided as a powerful whole, and I’m glad I saw it.

Still, I'm not sure I recommend it, at least not as a piece of entertainment. It's not entertaining, but informative. But it is also only informative as an archive, because it's over a decade old. To put it another way, it's a good movie, but a possibly dated one: we can still learn from it, but I think the cultural impact it would have today is almost more about the Indian rather than the queer. And maybe that's the point in the first place.