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Heaven on Earth: Preity Zinta's Heart Wrenching Performance
by Aseem Chhabra |
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In an early scene in Deepa Mehta's new film Heaven on Earth, Preity Zinta sits in a well lit room in a gurdwara in Brampton – a suburb of Toronto. Zinta's character Chand has traveled alone -- all the way from Ludhiana, to marry into a working class Sikh family. She has no immediate family beside her. Sitting opposite her is another Sikh woman also dressed in bridal attire. And outside big white snowflakes are falling.
"It's snowing," a nervous Chand says, hoping to make a connection with someone who might be in the same situation as her. "Jesus," the other bride responds and shuts the door to any further conversation between the two.
It is a key scene, where Zinta, who is brilliant in her first Punjabi role, displays different layers of emotions – a nervous bride, a lonely new immigrant in an alien land, although Brampton has a very large Sikh population, and the childlike curiosity experiencing her first snowfall.
Zinta has played assorted roles in Bollywood, where she is mostly her bubbly self, looking perfectly adorable with her dimple, and her upbeat and charming personality. But in Heaven on Earth, Zinta gives a heart wrenching performance. Mehta did something amazing with Zinta. She looked deep into the soul of the Bollywood movie star and found a mature actress who could play a lonely, abused woman in a middle class setting, opposite a cast of talented actors, but none with Zinta's star power and screen experience.
Heaven on Earth is inspired by Naga Mandala, a play by Girish Karnard, although Mehta transposed the script into the world of the Sikh immigrant community in Toronto – a city that has been her home for over three decades. Heaven of Earth examines the issues of immigration, isolation and the power of imagination that can free the oppressed.
Living in this stifling world in a two bedroom apartment, which is occupied by another set of tenants during the day, while the rest of the family heads to work or hangout at a local mall, Zinta's Chand starts to imagine the existence of a mythical cobra snake that becomes her savior from the daily dose of domestic violence.
In addition to Zinta, Heaven on Earth works first and foremost because of it strong and believable supporting cast -- Vansh Bhardwaj (Rocky – Chand's charming and yet abusive husband), Ramanjit Kaur (Rocky's sister Aman), Balinder Johal (Rocky's mother, obsessed with her son and expecting Chand to endure abuse, as if it was part of her marriage contract) and Gourrav Sihan (Aman's unemployed husband Baldev).
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 Aseem Chhabra is a freelance writer
based in New York who has previously
written for The New York Times The
Boston Globe Philadelphia Inquirer and
Time Out New York |
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