The second of a "Trilogy of the Elements" by Indian-born, Canadian-based filmmaker Deepa Mehta. It has little in common with Fire, the first, beyond its Indian setting, its general interest in social changes there, and its alluring leading lady, Nandita Das. The backdrop this time is historical, at the very brink of the British pullout in 1947 and the bloody partition of the country into the separate dominions of India and Pakistan. The director is thus able to exploit current and continuing tensions in the region without doing much to elucidate them, instead fostering the incomprehensible impression that Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims had been living in perfect harmony as long as they had the common antagonist of the British toward whom to channel their hostilities. (The little girl through whose eyes we witness the events, the youngest of a politically neutral family of Parsees, is so troubled about the proposed breakup of her country that she smashes a plate on the floor in an effort to grasp the concept.) The undoubted seriousness of the enterprise is not well supported by its cast of overglamorous facsimiles of "Bollywood" pop singers and soap-opera stars. The setting itself, however, is evocatively photographed, in a buttery, rosy, picture-book style, and there is an especially lyrical scene of rooftop kite-flying as well as a spectacular shot, also from the rooftops, of the nocturnal cityscape slashed by arson. Why couldn't this one have been called Fire in place of the first one? (1999) — Duncan Shepherd