Paper instructions:
Please respond to the following questions based on Deepa Mehta’s movie, ‘Earth’ :
1. Comment on the use of women’s bodies as sites of signification and contestation during the violence that followed the partition of the Indian subcontinent.
2. Does the film’s intention for using a child’s perspective succeed in portraying the horrors of partition? What are the advantages and disadvantages of looking at major historical events through the eyes of a child?
3. Analyze the main characters – Shanta, Lenny’s nanny, Hasan, the masseur and Dil Navaz, the ice candy man. Which character reflects the “earth” upon which most of the love-narrative is fought?
4. Discuss the relationship between Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims (and Parsis) in Lahore at the beginning of the film. How does the mother, Bunty Sethna describe the Parsis to her daughter Lenny in the film?
5. “Earth” is a powerful and disturbing reminder of how a civilization can suddenly crack under certain pressures.” – The New York Times. Comment
