Bandit Queen

Shekar Kapoor, India/UK, 1994, 120 minutes

Out of the thousands of Indian productions this is one of the few to be successful outside the country. it tackles the problems of a country in which the caste system still governs the everyday life of many people and where women particularly are often still regarded as possessions of their husbands and treated without esteem. But the major incidents dealt with in the movie can easily be found in our society as well (child abuse, rape...).

Phoolan Devi belongs to the lower caste and is sold by her father at the age of eleven to a bachelor for marriage. He forces her to work as his maid and abuses her sexually. Devi flees back home but faces rejection there by the local community that disapproves of her having left her spouse. She is jailed and raped several times in prison. Eventually she ends up in the clutches of the bandits - gangs that terrorise the surrounding districts. There she also undergoes humiliation and rape. When she finally forms her own band she is obsessed with tracking down and assassinating all the men who ever disgraced her. As she is also acting as a kind of Indian Robin Hood the masses regard her as an avenging angel supporting the lower castes and the impoverished. Since her popularity jeopardises the authorities they consequently launch a crack down on the whole gang.

As the story is a true one and until recently Phoolan Devi (the Bandit Queen) was officially deemed an outlaw and terrorist, the release of a film trying to explain the conduct of Devi directed by an Indian (Shekkar Kapur) was rather risky and daring.

Review by Jan Lawen
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96