Drawing on the truth

10 April 2012

Produced by Channel 4 in 1994 — at a time when it was still making good films for cinema release as well as television — Shekhur Kapur’s depiction of the true-life story of a low-caste Indian woman who became a bandit and social outcast in Uttar Pradesh after refusing to submit quietly to rape is one of the most impressive if most harrowing of Indo-British films.

A superb performance from Seema Biswas as Phoolan Devi, the woman who took equally brutal revenge, is central to the film’s success but the fact that Kapur neither sensationalises the story nor sentimentalises Devi helps too. Both the troubled Devi and the Indian censors objected to the film. But it remains one of the very best about the caste system and the oppression of Indian women ever made.

Bandit Queen
Cert: 18

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