Based on the book “Cracking India,” a semiautobiographical account by author Bapsi Sidhwa, the film surveys India as the British depart, approaching the partisan struggle from a neutral standpoint. Mehta’s window to the mayhem is Lenny (Maia Sethna), the privileged 8-year-old daughter of a Parsee family in Lahore. An only child slowed by a leg brace, Lenny is doted upon by her young nanny, Shanta (Nandita Das), and friends including Dil Nawaz (Aamir Khan), an affable ice cream vendor, and Hasan (Rahul Khanna), a shy masseuse. But something slowly overcomes Lenny’s circle of caretakers: once close friends despite their religious differences, their relationships wither in the growing heat of communal tension. Lenny questions the hatred, her naivete disappearing as villages burn and friends escape. The country’s discrepancies in class and culture only lend a cruel irony to events: when a young Muslim refugee tells Lenny of his mother’s rape and murder, she asks what rape is. When she invites him home for birthday cake, he has to ask what cake is.
“Earth” offers a sadly realistic snapshot of the mixed emotions and violent chaos that accompanied India’s independence. Though the story is underdeveloped in parts (the central love affair between Shanta and Hasan feels slightly forced), Mehta’s coup is her portrayal of the partition’s specific horrors, detailed as vividly as an old grandfather’s memories. Trains filled with corpses are sent back and forth across the border; terrified Hindus convert to avoid persecution; neighborhoods of all religious persuasions are slowly engulfed in flames. In an excellent performance from Khan, Nawaz embodies the metamorphosis from carefree soul to hardened warrior, joining the warfare after losing his sisters to brutal violence.
Mehta’s sensitive direction is a reflection of her experience. The 44-year-old director grew up in Amritsar, where “every family has a horror story to tell,” she says. The conflicts at Kargil this spring lend a sad timeliness to her film, but Mehta hopes the movie will offer a glimpse of the Subcontinent’s history. Indeed, with strong acting and a wonderful mix of characters, “Earth” not only captures the nation’s lost innocence, but leaves the viewer pondering an important irony: how to celebrate the freedom of a country that lost half its territory amid mind-numbing violence.
