Deepa Mehta`s "Heaven On Earth" is in censor trouble. Asked to drastically reduce scenes of domestic violence and to beep out a couple of expletives, she stood her ground, and not a single shot from the film has been cut.
Mehta, who is no stranger to censorship, said: "I told them I won`t make a single cut. And they were welcome to give me an `A` certificate if they wanted. They agreed. Not a single shot from `Heaven On Earth` has been removed."
Mehta is appalled by what she says are double standards in censorship.
"Correct me if I`m wrong. But another film, `Provoked`, had scenes of domestic violence. And Jennifer Lopez in `Enough` or Julia Roberts in `Sleeping With The Enemy` were shown to be far more graphically violated than Preity in `Heaven On Earth`. Comparatively my film has very little on-screen violence. We`ve just one sequence of domestic violence."
Mehta wouldn`t let the movie be touched.
"I refused to let them cut a single moment from it. Luckily my distributor Ravi Chopra was with me. He too would settle for no cuts. He said so many films with so much more violence get a `U` certificate. Films showing irrelevant gratuitous violence gets passed.
"But when in `Heaven On Earth` we show what happens behind closed doors, we`re told to cut it out. No way! You`ve horrific stories of young girls being beaten up and abused in Mangalore and Mumbai. If I make a film about it, they`ll see these things can`t be shown," she added.
Mehta said: "The violence in `Heaven On Earth` is not manipulative. Wives are physically abused in front of the whole family. Children grow up thinking there`s nothing wrong in beating up women and little girls who witness their mothers being battered actually believe getting beaten up is their destiny."
About the expletives, Mehta laughs: "We`ve a whole recent history of Hindi films filled with maa-bahen ki gaali. The kid in `Heaven On Earth` says the `f` word twice once when his mother tells him to fasten his seat belt. How shocking is that!"
Sighs Mehta: "I`m tired of the hypocrisy in censorship. You know, in the days when Asha Parekh was the censor chief they passed my `Fire` without a single cut and with a `U` certificate. The objection to the film came from the Shiv Sena. And now when there`s rampant violence against women, I was asked to cut it down. I said I`d rather not screen the film in India."
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