Zinta, who plays a new arranged match bride from India, who is abused by her husband in their suburban Toronto home in the film, has received some of the best reviews of her career. The Globe and Daily Mail called her performance 'luminous.'
She appeared recently with Mehta in Indigo, the best-known bookshop in Toronto, to discuss the making of Heaven on Earth and what she learned from not only working in the film but also from the slapping incident.
She said she understood how abused women feel even more terrible when it takes place in front of others, especially family members. In doing her research for the film, she had come to know of a woman, who pleaded with her husband that if he has to beat her, could he please do it when others were not around.
The film, which is being released across Canada in the last week of October and a few months later in America, has become one of the most popular and well regarded of the nearly 250 features films from more than 60 countries shown at the Toronto International Film Festival this year.
"When I am 80 years old," the actress said in a resolute voice, "it will be this film I will remember the most."
In an earlier interview with rediff.com, she had said that Mehta had taken her to places she (Zinta) thought she would never be able to go to. "It is a film that challenged my acting at every turn," she said. "I never felt I was acting in a film when I worked with Deepa. It was like documenting real life."
She also recalled when Mehta had met her at an award function for Bollywood films held in the United Kingdom over a year ago, she narrated the film's story. "The idea of the abused woman using her imagination to fight the abusive situation appealed to me," she had said. In the second half of the film, which is inspired by a Girish Karnad's play Naga Mandala, the abused wife Chand is given a magical root to change the abusing husband, Rocky. One thing leading to another, a cobra materialises in their Brampton home. Now, could the cobra be the changed husband? Or is Chand imagining things to forget her unhappiness? When the cobra appears to Chand, it comes in the form of a very loving Rocky. But Rocky is not really changed, the wife discovers.
"It could be interpreted that she is imagining all this thing about the cobra and how her life is changing," Zinta gave her own interpretation of the plot twist.
Mehta too has said the story of the snake becoming Chand's lover after drinking the magic potion can be perceived on many levels. On a literal level, the snake is assuming the role of the husband. On another level, the transformation of the husband into the snake assumes a philosophical tenor. Does the Naga lover really exist or is he a figment of her imagination? Or is it the husband playing a game of his own? Or is it the wife, who creates her story?
In the picture: Preity Zinta with Deepa Mehta
Also Read: Why Preity Zinta loves New York
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