Water

A film with the epic scale and fearless common-sense vision of Water is a revelation.

An exquisite film about the institutionalized oppression of an entire class of women and the way patriarchal imperatives inform religious belief.

As beautiful as it is harrowing.

In an elemental way, though, the film always works. The acting can be basic, a cross between Bollywood directness and Western nuance, but it has weight.

As a sign of how stubborn some irrational religious traditions can be, Hindu protesters forced Mehta to close down her Indian location and finish the film in neighboring Sri Lanka.

It's infuriating in more ways than one. Yet it's also somehow touching in its melange of melodrama and modernism.

The movie takes the form of a lackluster women's-prison picture.