Deepa Mehta’s Fire is a socially incisive and aesthetically evocative exploration of gender oppression in South Asia and the humanizing power that a relationship of spiritual and sexual love founded on equality can have within this context.
At the heart of Fire is a traditional Hindu joint-family living in one building. The family comprises an aged mother, her two sons, their wives and a servant. The film begins with the marriage of the younger son to Sita (Nandita Das) and her joining the family at his home. She immediately assumes her role in caring for the aged mother, who as the result of a stroke cannot speak. The family operates two businesses from their home: a video rental business and a street-side restaurant. Both Sita and her sister-in-law, Radha (Shabana Asmi), work in the family restaurant.
We soon learn that Sita’s husband, Jutin, has been having an affair with an immigrant from Hong Kong, a hair dresser – an affair which began long before his marriage to Sita. As his girlfriend refuses to marry into a traditional joint-family, Jutin, at his family’s insistence, marries Sita in order that they might have children. Jutin continues his affair despite his marriage to Sita, whom he treats in as heartless and unfeeling a manner as possible. Their first sexual encounter is depicted as brutal and dehumanizing.
