“Fire,” written and directed by Deepa Mehta. Running time: 104 minutes. Unrated (nudity, language, adult content). Dec. 8-11, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

About her controversial film “Fire,” writer and director Deepa Mehta notes in a promotional director’s statement that it “came about in part because I had a real desire to demystify India.

“The India of the British Raj, or Maharajas and beautiful princesses surrounded by abject poverty, just doesn’t exist anymore. I wanted to make a film of contemporary, middle-class India, with all its vulnerabilities, foibles and the incredible, extremely dramatic battle that is waged daily between the forces of tradition and the desire for an independent, individual voice.”

In great part, Mehta has succeeded in accomplishing her goals. Her beautifully photographed film, shot in New Delhi, is about two Indian women trapped in unhappy marriages. When they do find love, it is in each other’s arms and proves so outside the experiences of these Hindus, their native land literally doesn’t have a name for it.

Here, we do have a name. It is called lesbianism.

The film begins when lovely, willful Sita (Nandita Das) marries handsome, philandering Jatin (Jaaved Jaaferi) in an arranged marriage doomed from the outset. Indeed, Jatin married Sita only after being pressured by his deeply religious brother, Ashok (Kulbushan Kharbanda), who believed it was time for Jatin to zip up his pants, follow tradition and raise a family of his own.

But Jatin’s heart — along with his libido and his groping hands — belongs to his Chinese girlfriend, Juli (Alice Poon), a flamboyant hairstylist who never wants to marry, but who is more than content to continue sleeping with her longtime lover.

Knowledge of this affair sends a hurt and confused Sita to her older sister-in-law, Radha (Shabana Azmi), a kindhearted woman whose marriage is also in disrepair. When Rahda’s husband, Ashok, learned 13 years before that his wife couldn’t bear children, he took a vow of celibacy for spiritual enlightenment, a decision that has rendered his marriage loveless and dead.

Predictably, Sita and Radha find in each other a love driven by mutual need, compassion and understanding. Their fiery emotional and physical bond transcends anything they have known and proves to be something their husbands could never provide.

What makes “Fire” such a worthwhile film is not only its excellent performances and its gorgeous cinematography, but also director Mehta’s courage to explore a subject her country swears is not part of Indian culture. This past January, at the International Film Festival of India in Trivandrum, one incensed man threatened to shoot and kill Mehta after viewing the film. “I have never seen so many explosive males and so many jubilant women in one place,” Mehta recalls in a prepared statement. “All were ready to have a fistfight in order to support their particular view of `Fire.”‘

That a film can launch such a heated dialogue, and expose the hypocrisy of a culture steeped so heavily in misogynism, should not go unnoticed.

Grade: B plus

Video of the Week

“Men in Black,” directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Written by Ed Solomon. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated PG-13 (violence and language).

Barry Sonnenfeld’s surprisingly good comedy, “Men in Black,” is everything “Independence Day” could have been if only it had wit, intelligence and a shred of fun — qualities that abomination lacked.

Based on the Malibu comic book by Lowell Cunningham, the film takes the premise that Earth has been invaded by a band of aliens who not only resemble us, but who also live among us. None of this is a surprise to our government, which essentially regards these aliens as innocuous, harmless visitors in need of a new home.

What the government does fear are two things: that the people of Earth will learn about these creatures, and that a dangerous tribe of aliens will slip through the cosmic immigration net in an effort to take over Earth. To prevent each scenario from happening, the government’s top-secret operation Men in Black has been formed — which is a good thing considering that Earth has recently been invaded by an alien determined to take over our world.

With Tommy Lee Jones as Special Agent K, Will Smith as Special Agent J and Linda Fiorentino as the smart, sexy coroner, “Men in Black” may suffer from an ending that falls short of its terrific buildup, but still it remains a film that elevates the genre to a new intellectual high, and should not be missed, particularly by fans of the “X-Files.”

Grade: B plus

Christopher Smith, a writer and critic who lives in Brewer, reviews films each Monday in the NEWS.