Parameters in Classification of Potential Anthropologically Relevant Data in Films: A Study Based on Fiction Film Water by Deepa Mehta and Documentary Film India's Daughter by Leslee Udwin.

Use of fiction films and documentaries in the classrooms for teaching concepts of anthropology is gaining popularity with teachers and students equally. It helps students understand and experience various concepts more closely and helps them relate with the issue shown on the screen. The choice of films and documentaries for the purpose however poses problems. A documentary seems to be a natural and easy choice over a fiction film for the purpose as a documentary is supposed to be treating the real events in an objective and matter of fact way. But at the same time, some fiction films also contain the information about the culture and system of a communi h) in such a way that it comes out to be an equally important choice for the students as well as teachers. The paper looks at fiction film Water by Deepa Mehta and documentan; film India's Daughter by Leslee Udwin in terms of their significance for anthropological importance and their eligibility as raw anthropological data for classroom teaching. It does so by highlighting the verifiable facts presented in the works and the objections and resistance these works faced in terms of the filmmakers' rendition of the reality. It tries to bring home the point that we cannot summarily dismiss a fiction/commercial film as being anthropologically irrelevant just because of the genre that it belongs to. At the same time it tries to point out the fact that at times, a documentary film may not be relevant anthropologically. The criteria for tagging of a film as anthropologically relevant should be the fair and objective treatment of the subject highlighted in the film.