REVIEW: BANDIT QUEEN
Edwin Jahiel
A film review by Edwin Jahiel
Copyright 1995 Edwin Jahiel
**
(India, 1994)
Directed by Shekhar Kapur.
Written by Mala Sen.
Photography, Ashok Mehta.
Editing, Renu Saluja.
Music, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Cast: Seema Biswas, Nirmal Pandey, Manoj Bajpai, Rajesh Vivek, Raghuvi Yadav,
Govind Namdeo, Saurabh Shukla, Aditya Srivastava, Sunita Bhatt
(as Young Phoolan).
Co-produced by Channel Four.
An Arrow release.
In Hindi with subtitles.
119 min.
Not rated.
At the Art.
On the face of it at least, and for filmgoers who are not truly
familiar with Indian film, BANDIT QUEEN is as far as can be from the
West's impression of what Indian movies are, assuming of course that
there are impressions, since the huge Indian production is "terra
incognita" to the non-Indian public or at best something merely
glimpsed.
For those who have some familiarity with Indian film, there is, on
the one hand the huge output of pop-commercial, formulaic works,
romances and adventures punctuated by songs and dances. On the other,
a much smaller number of comparatively "elitist" works. Yet there was
never merely "an Indian Cinema" but various "Indian Cinemas." These
developed in eleven major languages and some twenty others, including
dialects.
Bengali cinema, though in quantity about one-fourth of the
dominating Hindi films, has been the most prestigious. It was Satyajit
Ray's 1955 PATHER PANCHALI and his other two works of the great "Apu
Trilogy" (APARAJITO and THE WORLD OF APU) that put India on the
international map. Ray was much influenced by the Frenchman Jean
Renoir.
This is not too unlike the case of the once-famous Swedish cinema
which fell into bad times, underwent a small renaissance in the 1940s
under the influence of French poetic realism, and re-entered the world
scene in the 1940s thanks to the works of Ingmar Bergman.
Ray practiced what strikes me as thoughtful, poetic neo-realism.
He ushered in the New Wave of directors' cinema, much of it Bengali but
also from many states, such as enlightened Kerala which had a policy of
aid to quality films. Even then, this production, though deserving a
wide Western exposure, is principally seen in film festivals and little
known to outside India.
BANDIT QUEEN does not fall into familiar categories. It is based
on the story of Phoolan Devi (Seema Biswas) who was the leader of a
dacoit (brigand, outlaw, etc.) band for about five years. She became a
major media figure as well as a pop-icon because she was low caste
while her attacks were against upper caste people. In 1983, she
surrendered to the authorities. She was charged with four dozen major
crimes, including kidnapping and murder, notably the February 1981 raid
on the town of Behmai where between 22 and 30 (figures vary) people
were massacred. Phoolan was released after 8, 11 or 12 years in prison
(figures vary) and now is either in politics or planning to be.
BANDIT QUEEN purports to be a filmization of Phoolan's biography
as written by Mala Sen whose book was based on information gathered
from co-prisoners of Phoolan, who in turn related what Phoolan had told
them. Historiography needs more than that, but let it pass...
In the movie, Phoolan is introduced as short, homely,
foul-mouthed, lower caste eleven-year old who is sold as a wife to a
higher caste "old" (make it early 20s). His mother is getting old and
needs a housekeeper-slave. He pays with a rusty bicycle and a skeletal
cow. This is already a form of rape.
At her husband's place Phoolan is discriminated against for her
caste and ill-treated. Immediately after giving her a beating, the
husband, while saying that she "is still not ripe" rapes her. The rape
motif seems to be Ariadne's thread in the entire story.
Phoolan runs away to her family. Several years later the grown-up
woman also escapes from her village where the higher caste headman's
son tried to rape her, beat her up and lied to the village elders. One
thing leading to another, she comes in contact with the dacoits who
first mock her then accept her. She becomes the leader's mistress, her
status grows, eventually she is chief.
Actor-director Kapur has taken many liberties (some of which he
defends on artistic grounds) with the life of Phoolan, including a
marriage which was very different in real life. Phoolan, now married
to an upper caste man, brought suit against Kapur and tried to have the
film boycotted by festivals. She settled for a generous (for India)
sum.
No doubt, much of the film deals with acute discrimination and
ill-treatment of lower castes and of women in general. But much of
that gets vaporized by the movie's artiness, effective at first, then
becoming artificial. While it skips songs and dances BANDIT QUEEN
seems to slow down past the early parts and to get lost in looseness
and vagueness.
The action, relationships, the passage of time, the geography of
the place, the situations and the characters' purposes are often
unclear, confused and confusing. You may wonder about the double-faced
high caste fellow who is both in with the bandits but plans their
destruction. Or, later, about Baba Mustaquim who is apparently a local
Godfather to whom the gang goes for approval of plans.
The rapes continue. Phoolan is stripped naked in public.
Violence escalates. But the movie does not master the building of
tension or suspense. It lacks tightness and selectivity. Nor does the
often fine photography avoid excesses, as when some of the agitation at
the Behmai Massacre is shot in dreamy, washed out, slow motion. Or
when Phoolan in a red bandana recalls Geronimo flicks. You'd think
that the director had seen too much Sam Peckinpah but was unable to
emulate him.
Had the film been more neatly made, even as a kind of mythological
Joan of Arc or Robin Hood story--or generally on discrimination and
abuses of human rights--it would have been more convincing. As it is,
though Phoolan is not really romanticized, we still don't know who she
is, what motivates her, what she thinks, what makes her tick. The
movie is promising at the start and remains quite watchable, but it
affects you far less than the better, often quiet, intimate,
politically and sociologically committed works of the Indian New Wave.