Customer Reviews

Earth [VHS]

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Earth" is a totally different movie to "Fire" but just as controversial. While "Fire" touches on forbidden relationships and the dominance of men, "Earth" explores religion, an incendiary topic at the best of times.

Set in Lahore, India in 1947, this is a story of friendship, love, jealousy, betrayal, politics and ethnic cleansing. The main character is a young disabled Parsee girl named Lenny, who lives a comfortable life with her wealthy parents. Her nanny Shanta (Nandita Das, who also stars in Fire) is Hindu, and together with Lenny, enjoys the company of a diverse group of friends, including two Muslims, another Hindu and a Sikh.

Shanta falls in love with Hasan (Rahul Khanna) a peaceful, intelligent Muslim masseur, despite the affection of Dil Navez, known as "Ice Candy Man" (Aamir Khan).

The partition of India splits the group wide apart, and in the ethnic violence following independence, Dil Navez' sisters are brutally butchered. Turning to Shanta for support and love, his marriage proposal is rebuffed, and the final straw comes when he watches an intimate act between Shanta and Hasan.

The violence eventually reaches Lenny's household, as an angry Muslim mob descends on the property looking for Hindus, and she learns the hard way that even your friends can betray you under the right circumstances.

This movie graphically depicts the violence of ethnic cleansing, the horror of which overshadows the beauty of romance, the closeness of friendship and the happiness of families.

Well directed and acted, this movie may bring tears to the eyes of even the most jaded viewers.

Amanda Richards, December 30, 2004

Filmed in English and Hindi, this is the story of the partition of India in 1947, when Great Britain gave India her freedom, and partitioned the country into what is now India and Pakistan.

The story is told through the eyes of an eight-year-old upper class Parsee girl. She has large dark eyes filled with wonder, a crippled leg, and the wisdom of innocence as she observes a world going mad around her.

The city of Lahore, now in Pakistan, was in India then, and all the sects lived together in peace. Now, it becomes the site of turmoil and disaster as friends turn against each other and the blood bath begins.

The casting is perfect, the characters attractive and excellent actors, the music an important component of the internal and external dramas going on. The script is tight, the characterization deep, the story interesting on many levels.

The new country of Pakistan becomes Muslim and although the Parsees can remain there in peace, Hindus and Sikhs must leave. The situation is reversed in what becomes India, which forces the Muslims to leave. There are riots. Explosions. Atrocities by both sides so terrible that I shudder with revulsion.

The eight year old girl with the crippled leg is a witness to her times.

Don't miss the opportunity to view this video, feel the pain and passion of the individual characters, and experience a history that most Americans have little knowledge of. It's time to learn. And its time to understand.

Deepa Mehta's film "Earth" is at once tragic and courageous. It follows the lives of several people during the harsh times of Indian independence, in 1947. So many times, the portrayl of this era in cinema - which itself is very rare - idolizes only the events leading up to independence, usually following Gandhi. What is ignored by most of the media, though finally brought to light in "Earth," is the near anarchy that followed as religions that had survived peacefully for centuries aside one another erupted in a clash of ethnic warfare. Muslims and Hindus, brothers in the subcontinent for hundreds of years, clashed against one another over land and religion. Sikhs, too, who had been in India for hundreds of years as well, fell into this pot of warfare.

"Earth" discusses these events plainly but beautifully. The film itself is wonderful cinema: the plot continues to develop, the characters are real, and the tragedies are terribly saddening. There are moments of humor, of course, but most of the movie involves seeing those images of oppression and violence that have been shielded from view for so long. At one point, an entire traincar arrives, only to be filled with the bodies of dead Muslims - slaughtered, presumably, by Hindus, Sikhs, or others - from a nearby city. Later on, when a Hindu tenement in the city of Lahore (where the movie takes place) catches on fire, the Muslim firefighters douse the building not in water, but in petrol, escalating the flames. And after this has happened - after the audience and the characters have bore witness to horrible, unforgivable atrocities - the movie makes a very important point, that, though disturbing, is truly exemplified in the Indian subcontinet of 1947: everyone - be they Sikhs, Hindus, or Muslims - can be bad, and they can all do horrible acts to each other. The movie makes a point not to side with any individual religion. We see elements of Islam, elements of Sikhism and Hinduism, elements of the Parsees, and the movie remains non-judgemental. Everyone (well, not the Parsees too much) perform terrible acts to everyone else. By not being judgemental, "Earth" shows how these religions, these people that fought against each other with vehement, all have a very potent similarity. They are all capable of viciousness and inhumanity. "Earth" is a fabulous film, and is a must-see. Even if one is isn't interested in the workings of the wars that seperated India and Pakistan in 1947, one should see "Earth," as it finally shows those hidden deaths, those hidden tragedies, to the public eye. Bravo, Deepa Mehta.

When I finished watching it my heart has filled with sadness. The acting is superb. Who'd think that there would be soo much betrayal and a MAJOR shift from hapiness to extreme sufering and sadness. The music although slow is also GREAT. This movie helped me on my project about India and taught me about life in India before the partition riots of 1947 and about what happened in 1947, the riots, and the meaning of India's independence to those who lived in what is now Pakistan.
The acting is exellent, there was nothing that I saw wrong with this movie at all. So much sad scenes of vicious violence, and silly scenes of childhood as well as great romance and heart influencing emotion. This movie has affected me sooo much.

EARTH is one of the best movies I have ever seen, and it my uderstanding from reading the other reviews that others feel this way, too. If you are a fan of the movie, I have some VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION to share with you:

First, I want you all to know that the movie is based DIRECTLY on the book CRACKING INDIA by Bapsi Sidhwa (and if you haven't read the book--you must! Add it to your cart right now--Sidhwa is a wonderful writer and you cannot fully appreciate the movie until you have read the book). So to begin, I wanted to make sure that Sidhwa was recognized. I think it is only fair to give the "mother" of the idea full respect. Ok, for all of you desperate to find the SOUNDTRACK, I know where you can find it! To find it, you must know that when the movie first came out (in India I believe)it was entitled "1947" so the soundtrack is of the movie "1947" (Earth is exactly the same as 1947). Now, as if your life couldn't get any better...I know where you can order the CD soundtrack. Go to [...] and type in "1947". It should take you directly to a page where you can buy the CD. So, I hope that this gem of information will prompt you to read the book CRACKING INDIA, as the movie cannot be fully appreciated without having read it. Any more questions, you can e-mail me at ShumNum@aol.com. Happy viewing, listening, and READING!

"1947 -- Earth" is stunning, ravishing both visually and emotionally. The story is, ostensibly, about a particular time and place -- the city of Lahore, just on the line where the August 1947 end of the British Raj would crack the subcontinent into two parts. In a real sense, though, the film is not about one piece of history safely long ago and in someplace comfortably far away from us. It is about human behavior: what we hope we'll do, and what we're afraid we'll do.Deepa Mehta's work here surely does impact most deeply on Indian and Pakistani audiences precisely because it IS their personal history. But look at Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Darfur, 9/11, Iraq, Abu Ghraib,the bombings in Madrid and London -- the darkness there is the same one Mehta shows us in "Earth." She's talking about (and warning) people like us, too. The cast is remarkable. Even small roles are in the hands of quality like Kuhlbushan Kharbanda and Raguvir Yadav. The girl who is Lenny-baby beautifully combines innocence with the willful caprice of a child who's been over-indulged. Rahul Khanna has the sweetness of one who loves but has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Nandita Das' Shanta -- a flower around which Musselman, Hindu, Sikh, and Parsi bees all hover -- is knowledgeably flirtatious yet obtusely unobservant, or perhaps careless, of her effect. Best of all is Aamir Khan, whose Ice-Candy Man sees what is inside him, tries to stave it off, and then can do no more. Khan knows the value of stillnes. In that stillnes, his eyes -- Olivier eyes -- look at us, show us what he's seen inside and show us what we should fear inside ourselves.

I first saw this movie two years ago at an Amnesty International movie night at my college. I didn't pay all that much attention because I'd come in the middle. I saw it a year later for a Women Studies course and fell in love with it. The Partition is a difficult time in Indian and Pakistani history, but it is brought to vivid life in this film. The large scale story is brought to a manageable level with the circle that surrounds Shanta. Some of her suitors are Muslim, some Sikh, and some Hindu. She is what India could have been and the men around her are what India was to become. The acting is quite strong and I have to agree with all of the people who called the three main actors (Nandita Das,Aamir Khan, and Rahul Khanna) to be quite an amazing group and they make every scene when they are with the other shimmer and have more life than all the others. A truly beautiful movie with beautiful people, beautiful scenery, beautiful music, and a story worth hearing.

I saw Deepa's first effort in this series (Fire) and was entralled with the characters and the story. I was expecting a bit of a letdown with this film as most second efforts are usually not as good. I could not have been more wrong. This film had the hair standing up on the back of my neck through the sheer emotion of the tale being told. The characters are wonderful and the plot is quick and not predictable.

I found that this film changed the way I think about some parts of my life....

There have been complaints in reviews here about the lack of background information in this film on the different religions. However, keep in mind that the film was made for Inidan audiences who it must be assumed already knew all that information. The rest of us will just have to do a bit of research.

For instance, Lenny-baby's family was Parsee and therefore neutral in the conflict between Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Who were the Parsees? They were and are modern Zoroastrians. Their ancestors fled from Persia to India after the conquest of Persia by the Arabs in the 8th century.

Zoroastrianism is monotheistic like Islam and Christianity. It was once a world-class religion, but now it is almost extinct. In India, the Parsees are so few that their presence was never regarded as a threat by any of the other factions.

Regardless, the story is searing and at times hard to take. The fate of the two lovers is especially cruel.

It is interesting to see Amir Khan assay a role that is somewhat unusual for him and yet not all that unusual. He is charming, he is winning as ever and yet... In a way, his character defines what the movie tries to say about people and friendship and betrayal and hatred.

Throughout the movie, we expect from him exactly what little Lenny-baby expects. If it were otherwise, the ending would not have the impact it does. It was an inspired bit of casting.

And the little actress playing Lenny-baby, she is absolutely remarkable; one of the truest children I've ever seen on screen. She never hits a false note.

I am not sure if I could watch this movie again, but I do recommend that it be seen at least once. You will never forget it. I won't. Once is enough.

Deepa Mehta has such a commanding presence in her films that she is able to leave her audience both educated and devastated by her stories and by the ingenious ways in which she tells them. EARTH is a magnificent example of her gifts and while it may not be as visually luxurious or as touching as her subsequent WATER, it is a fine film that not only depicts a troubled time in India's history, but also informs us of the intricacies of how people relate to each other - first as humans, second as religious sects.

The film has at its heart the year 1947 when India was given its independence from Great Britain and at the same time bifurcated into two countries - India and Pakistan. The story opens with a tranquil park picnic in Lahore where friends - Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Parsee - while away the afternoon in camaraderie. Only slight overtones of edgy topics about religion mar the conversation until the topic focuses on the incipient split of the country into two countries. Each of the friends represents each of the religious sects and it is how these differences, at once unimportant to friendship, end up in separating the friends under the influence of the devastation of bloodshed that follows the division of the country and the displacement of millions of people, all under the guise of independence.

There is a strong love story, a committed crippled child who experiences all of the happiness and subsequent tragedy that is to follow and the story ends with some words of wisdom by the grown little girl reflecting on choices made, and other sidebars that maintain interest at every frame.

The acting is first rate from a beautiful cast and Mehta's direction makes this tale of change whir by the viewer. For those not educated in the differences of the four religious sects of Hindu, Parsee, Muslim, and Sikh the tale can become confusing: would that Mehta would have included a discussion about the film in an added feature the way she helped us understand the plight of widows in WATER. And the subtitles unfortunately do not translate the English spoken portions of the film, portions that while very important to the story are nearly indecipherable due to the accents of the characters speaking.

But these are minor quibbles in a film that pleads for repeated viewings, so beautiful is the movie and so very important is the message. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, September 06