Bandit Queen (DVD) *** | Screenjabber

In its home country of India, Bandit Queen is considered to be something of a masterpiece. The press notes say this was voted among the top twenty films ever produced in the country by domestic film critics. From my experience of the film, I’d have to align this with another movie that seems massively popular in its own country but almost entirely impossible to translate in full form and content to foreign lands: Once Were Warriors. I watched Once Were Warriors as a part of film studies and it hasn’t been until now that I’ve had the chance to watch a true equivalent of it. Once Were Warriors is a New Zealand film about an abusive and dysfunctional Maori family, outcast by society and struggling to cope with the pressures of life. It is shockingly bleak and offers little comfort but it’s a beautifully acted and directed film. The problem is that its themes are so much ingrained in New Zealand and particularly Maori culture that looking from the outside, it’s only really the aesthetic qualities that come through. Bandit Queen is this exact experience for India.

The story follows the youth and ascent to notoriety of Phoolan Devi, a bandit sent to prison in 1983 and turned into a Robin Hood-like figure by the Indian press. Rather than concentrate on those years fully, the film explores Devi’s difficult childhood, beginning with her sale into marriage aged 11 (and all that could ensue from that) and onwards into her breaking from traditional culture and eventual outlaw life. For Indians, the subject is controversial on the basic case of bringing such an idolised folk hero to the screen and making her into the real, ordinary girl she actually was. But Shekhar Kapur, director of Elizabeth, does a wonderful job of capturing her spirit and his camera work is excellent, showing a real eye for both the enclosed spaces of her beginnings and imprisonment and a skill for the action scenes that come during her banditry reign.

But it’s all just aesthetic for me. For anyone in India and particularly coming of age during Devi’s ascent, this is likely a document of a hero similar to the one given to Scots in Braveheart, albeit on a smaller scale. To Indians this film will be an unflinching portrayal of a folk hero who expressed ideologies repressed within prevailing culture. But from the outside, this is a well-acted and beautifully-shot evocation of ideas and philosophy that doesn’t strike at the heart of anyone not from India. The experience for all other will be that this is a bleak, emotionally devastating tale you won’t want to relive too quickly, despite the technical qualities.

EXTRAS ** A nice director's commentary from Shekhar Kapur who speaks with affection over the movie’s reception from critics and controversial reception from the rest of the country.