Deepa Mehta directed Heaven On Earth starring Preity Zinta highlights the isolation and disappointment faced by a family of Punjabi immigrants in Canada. Photo Credit: NFBCNovember 11, 2008, (Sawf News) - Deepa Mehta directed Heaven On Earth starring Preity Zinta highlights the isolation and disappointment faced by a family of Punjabi immigrants in Canada.
Chand (Preity Zinta) is a young woman who travels from Ludhiana, Punjab in India to Brampton, Ontario in Canada to marry Rocky (Vansh Bhardwaj), a man she has never met. Her dream of a new life morphs into a nightmare as marriage to Rocky and his family becomes a numbing spiral of confusion and pain.
A still from Heaven On Earth. Photo Credit: NFBCThe filming of Heaven on Earth started in November 2007 and was completed at the end of December 2007. The film was primarily shot in Toronto and Brampton in Canada, and in Punjab, India, where it was completed.
Deepa Mehta organized an acting workshop for Zinta in Toronto before the filming began so that the actor understands and come to grips with the character's milieu and body language. The film is made in English with Punjabi dialogues. It has been dubbed in Hindi for its India release.
The film was well received during its screening at Toronto International Film Festival and Chicago International Film Festival, where Preity Zinta received the Best Actress (Silver Hugo) award.
A still from Heaven On Earth. Photo Credit: NFBCThis is how the movie is set up:
Vibrant and irrepressibly alive, Chand (Preity Zinta) is a young bride leaving her home in Ludhiana, India, for the cavernous landscape of Brampton, Ontario, where her husband Rocky (Vansh Bhardwaj) and his very traditional family await her arrival. Everything is new to Chand, everything is unfamiliar including the quiet and shy Rocky who she meets for the first time at the Arrivals level of Pearson Airport. Chand approaches her new life and her new land with equanimity and grace, and at times the wide-eyed optimism of hope-her first snowfall is a tiny miracle of beauty, and the roar of Niagara Falls creates the excitement of new beginnings.
A still from Heaven On Earth. Photo Credit: NFBCBut soon optimism turns to isolation as the family she has inherited struggles beneath the weight of unspoken words, their collective frustration becoming palpable. No one feels the pressure more than Rocky, weighed down by familial obligations. A controlling mother who can't let him go, a sweet but ineffectual father, and a sister whose two children and unemployed husband are also a burden. All live with Rocky and Chand in a two-bedroom house in the suburbs of Toronto. To make matters worse, Rocky is expected to find the money to bring his extended family to Canada. Unable to express his anger, he finds other ways to release it and it's Chand who bears the brunt of his repressed rage.
A still from Heaven On Earth. Photo Credit: NFBCTrapped in a world she cannot comprehend and unable to please her husband, Chand is desperate. Hope comes in the form of Rosa (Yanna McIntosh), a tough and savvy Jamaican woman who works alongside Chand in a factory where immigrant women from all over the world clean and press dirty hotel laundry. Rosa sees past the make-up that covers Chand's bruised face. Realizing Chand has nowhere to turn, Rosa gives her a magical root advising her "to put it in whatever the bastard drinks." The root is supposed to seduce the one who takes it, making them fall hopelessly in love with the person who gives it to them. Chand's attempts with the magic root lead to surreal incidents and her life gradually begins to mirror an Indian fable involving a King Cobra. As the lines between fantasy and reality converge, Chand and Rocky come face to face with each other and themselves.
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