The Elements trilogy of films by Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta deals with controversial issues of social reform on the Indian subcontinent.
[3] Some notable actors that have worked in Mehta's Elements trilogy include Aamir Khan, Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, John Abraham, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Rahul Khanna, Lisa Ray, and Nandita Das.
Mehta had originally intended to direct Water in February 2000, with the actors Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das and Akshay Kumar.
[6] Indian feminist authors Mary E. John and Tejaswini Niranjana argued in 1999 that Fire reduces patriarchy to the denial and control of female sexuality:
But by taking this idea literally, the film imprisons itself in the very ideology it seeks to fight, its own version of authentic reality being nothing but a mirror image of patriarchal discourse.
Thus the patriarchal ideology of 'control' is first reduced to pure denial—as though such control did not also involve the production and amplification of sexuality—and is later simply inverted to produce the film's own vision of women's liberation as free sexual 'choice'.
[7] Madhu Kishwar, then-editor of Manushi, wrote a highly critical review of Fire, finding fault with the depiction of the characters in the film as a "mean-spirited caricature of middle class family life among urban Hindus".