This powerful and impressive drama from the director of Fire, Deepa Mehta (an Indian filmmaker now resident in Canada), is based on Bapsi Didhwa’s autobiographical novel Cracking India and is set against the background of Partition. Eight-year-old Lenny Baby (Maia Sethna) is a Parsee growing up
in Lahore; her nanny Shanta (Nandita Das) is a Hindu, while her beaus Ice Candy Man (Aamir Khan) and Hasan (Rahul Khanna) are both Muslim. This schematic melodrama functions both as a credible historical explanation of the India/Pakistan political divide (the Parsees remained unaligned) and as a chilling exploration of how ordinary people are sucked into religious and sectarian hatred.

Canada/India, 1998.
English subtitles.
Colour.
Dolby stereo
SR. 115 mins.