4. Fire (1996)

Language: Hindi/English

Director: Deepa Mehta

Running time: 104 mins

Starring: Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Kulbhushan Kharbanda,Javed Jaaferi

Company: Home by the Fire Films/Trial by Fire Films

Arguably the most controversial film to be shown in India in recent years, Fire explored the ways in which women come together in sexually intimate ways in a society infested with glum and violent men perpetually on the verge of regressing into infantilism. The stinging critique of Indian patriarchy and cultural hypocrisy was ably helped by the gritty performances from the lead players. The chaos that followed in which halls showing the film were burned as mobs of Hindu nationalist men and women rioted on the streets has only added to the film's cultural significance. What was missed in the bargain by those who chose to boycott or mutilate the film was a revival of the 1970s Indian cinema's concern with dissecting the textures of ordinary Indian middle class lives now updated to fit the concerns of contemporary India defined by the interests of the new urban consumer classes.