Fire (1997) on Netflix
After marrying Jatin, Sita moves into his family's house, where his older brother Ashok lives with his wife Radha. Ashok's faith forbids desire, and Radha's marriage has brought no children.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.1/106,826 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
Radha's arranged marriage to Ashok is childless. Ashok has come under the influence of a local preacher, Swamiji, who teaches that desire causes suffering and should be suppressed; for thirteen years Ashok has not slept with his wife, and he tests his resolve by lying motionless beside her. When Ashok's younger brother Jatin marries Sita, the couple moves into the joint household, which also holds Ashok and Jatin's paralyzed, speechless mother Biji and the servant Mundu. Jatin shows Sita no attention and keeps seeing a girlfriend. Sita labors in the kitchen and chafes at her loneliness, while Radha carries guilt over her infertility and frustration with Ashok's ritual.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Fire (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On 2 December, more than 200 Shiv Sainiks stormed a Cinemax theater in suburban Goregaon, Mumbai, smashing glass panes, burning posters and shouting slogans, and forcing managers to refund tickets. The Regal theater in Delhi was similarly stormed the next day.
- India's Central Board of Film Certification passed Fire uncut in May 1998 with an Adult rating on one condition: the character named Sita, which is also the name of a Hindu goddess, had to be renamed Nita. The board later allowed the original name back.
- Fire is one of the first mainstream Bollywood films to show homosexual relations explicitly, and the first to feature a lesbian relationship. It is loosely based on Ismat Chughtai's 1942 story "Lihaaf" ("The Quilt").
- Shabana Azmi hesitated about starring in Fire: she liked Deepa Mehta's script but feared it would hurt her charity work with disadvantaged women in slums. Her family, especially Zoya Akhtar, encouraged her, and she decided it was important to get a conversation started.
- Shabana Azmi disclosed in 2025 that Fire was originally going to be filmed in Hindi, but only days before shooting began the dialogue was changed to English because it was felt the Hindi dialogue didn't ring true.
- Azmi also stated that Fire's ending was originally a different one, and that the released ending was adopted on the advice of Farhan Akhtar.
- Fire was made on a budget of $800,000, and its crew deferred their salaries, a total worth $450,000.
