Bandit Queen Blu-ray Review
If you kill, kill at least twenty. Kill one and they'll hang you. Kill twenty and you're famous.
The story of Bandit Queen begins in rural India in 1968. Phoolan Devi, then just eleven years old, is summoned to her home by her father. A man has offered to buy her for his wife in exchange for a rusty bicycle and a starving cow. Phoolan's mother begs her husband to let their daughter stay at home for another six months, but he replies "A daughter is always a burden, and ours is no beauty." After a perfunctory wedding ceremony, a despondent Phoolan to taken to her husband's home, where she is reviled, partly because of her low standing in the caste system, but also because he has the audacity to speak her mind. Her new husband, a thoroughly despicable human being, is unwilling to wait for her to mature physically so he beats and rapes her.
She runs away and returns to her village. A few years later, while she is gathering wheat, a young man tries to have his way with her but she tries to fight him off. He and his friends then drag her into the village and beat her while others look on and do nothing to stop it. Called before the village elders, she tries to explain that she is blameless, but the man who assaulted her claims that she told him that she was "itching for it." Phoolan is then expelled from the village. She goes to live with a male cousin, who earns money by delivering supplies to bandits who hide out in remote ravines. One day she accompanies her cousin and draws the attention of Vikram, one of the bandits. Later her cousin's wife, who has become jealous because of Phoolan's youth and the attention her husband pays to her, insists that she leave their house and go live somewhere else. She then is picked up by the police, jailed and repeatedly raped.
After she is released from jail, she has nowhere to go except back to her family. Her father does not want her there, as he regards her as nothing but trouble. However, she does not stay long because a gang of bandits led by a ruthless and cruel bandit named Babu Gujjar comes to claim her. Vikram, the bandit who was attracted to her previously, is one of Babu Gujjar's lieutenants. Babu is interested in having Phoolan as his sex slave, but after Vikram hears her getting raped by Babu he decides to put an end to it by killing his leader. Vikram then decides that there might be an advantage to having a female bandit in the gang.
Bandit Queen works on several levels. It is a violent, bloody, action-packed adventure film. But it also is a compelling indictment of the caste system and the way women are treated in some third-world countries. The film opens with this astonishing quotation from Hindu religious scripture: "Animals, drums, illiterates, low castes and women are worthy of being beaten." How could a father sell his daughter into marriage at the age of eleven for any amount of money, much less a rusty bicycle and a malnourished cow? How can people stand by and do nothing while a woman is beaten and raped? What sorts of people are content to live in a culture where people born into poverty are condemned to a lifetime of deprivation?
What is extraordinary about Phoolan Devi is her resiliency. The bandit society is just as male-dominated as the rest of rural India, yet through sheer determination and refusal to submit she emerges as a leader who earns respect of the men she fights with. The Indian actress Seema Biswas turns in a remarkably believable performance as Phoolan the bandit, and Sunita Bhatt (in what apparently is her only motion picture credit) is heartbreaking as the cruelly mistreated young Phoolan. Nirmal Panday is outstanding as Vikram, the bandit who has the courage to tell his men that they must respect women. The film is brilliantly directed by Shekhar Kapur, who is probably best known to American audiences as the director of the 1998 film Elizabeth.
Also included is a typically informative booklet with an insightful essay by Julie Kirgo, who helpfully describes what happened to Phoolan Devi in the years following the release of Bandit Queen.
Bandit Queen is an exciting and gut-wrenching film about unspeakable atrocities inflicted upon a woman who refused to let those atrocities destroy her spirit. It also will cause many viewers to reflect upon the way that religious extremism has been used around the world by men to subjugate women. Lately it is mostly Islamic extremism that we hear about, but this film makes it clear that radical Islam does not hold a monopoly on treating women like property.
This Twilight Time release is a limited edition of 3,000 copies, so readers interested in purchasing it should go to the Screen Archives website and confirm that copies are still available.
I first heard of Bandit Queen in 1994 when I watched Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert give it an enthusiastic "Two Thumbs Up" on their television program. Based on fact, the film tells the story of Phoolan Devi, a woman in India who rose from being a lower-caste girl who was sold into marriage at the age of eleven to become a legendary outlaw who was revered as a goddess by the impoverished and downtrodden people in her country.
Studio: Other
Distributed By: Twilight Time
Video Resolution and Encode: 1080P/AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio: Other
Subtitles: English
Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: 1 Hr. 59 Min.
Package Includes: Blu-ray
Standard Blu-ray CaseDisc Type: BD50 (dual layer)
Region: A
Release Date: 01/20/2015
MSRP: $24.95
The Production Rating: 4.5/5
If you kill, kill at least twenty. Kill one and they'll hang you. Kill twenty and you're famous.
The story of Bandit Queen begins in rural India in 1968. Phoolan Devi, then just eleven years old, is summoned to her home by her father. A man has offered to buy her for his wife in exchange for a rusty bicycle and a starving cow. Phoolan's mother begs her husband to let their daughter stay at home for another six months, but he replies "A daughter is always a burden, and ours is no beauty." After a perfunctory wedding ceremony, a despondent Phoolan to taken to her husband's home, where she is reviled, partly because of her low standing in the caste system, but also because he has the audacity to speak her mind. Her new husband, a thoroughly despicable human being, is unwilling to wait for her to mature physically so he beats and rapes her.
She runs away and returns to her village. A few years later, while she is gathering wheat, a young man tries to have his way with her but she tries to fight him off. He and his friends then drag her into the village and beat her while others look on and do nothing to stop it. Called before the village elders, she tries to explain that she is blameless, but the man who assaulted her claims that she told him that she was "itching for it." Phoolan is then expelled from the village. She goes to live with a male cousin, who earns money by delivering supplies to bandits who hide out in remote ravines. One day she accompanies her cousin and draws the attention of Vikram, one of the bandits. Later her cousin's wife, who has become jealous because of Phoolan's youth and the attention her husband pays to her, insists that she leave their house and go live somewhere else. She then is picked up by the police, jailed and repeatedly raped.
After she is released from jail, she has nowhere to go except back to her family. Her father does not want her there, as he regards her as nothing but trouble. However, she does not stay long because a gang of bandits led by a ruthless and cruel bandit named Babu Gujjar comes to claim her. Vikram, the bandit who was attracted to her previously, is one of Babu Gujjar's lieutenants. Babu is interested in having Phoolan as his sex slave, but after Vikram hears her getting raped by Babu he decides to put an end to it by killing his leader. Vikram then decides that there might be an advantage to having a female bandit in the gang.
Bandit Queen works on several levels. It is a violent, bloody, action-packed adventure film. But it also is a compelling indictment of the caste system and the way women are treated in some third-world countries. The film opens with this astonishing quotation from Hindu religious scripture: "Animals, drums, illiterates, low castes and women are worthy of being beaten." How could a father sell his daughter into marriage at the age of eleven for any amount of money, much less a rusty bicycle and a malnourished cow? How can people stand by and do nothing while a woman is beaten and raped? What sorts of people are content to live in a culture where people born into poverty are condemned to a lifetime of deprivation?
What is extraordinary about Phoolan Devi is her resiliency. The bandit society is just as male-dominated as the rest of rural India, yet through sheer determination and refusal to submit she emerges as a leader who earns respect of the men she fights with. The Indian actress Seema Biswas turns in a remarkably believable performance as Phoolan the bandit, and Sunita Bhatt (in what apparently is her only motion picture credit) is heartbreaking as the cruelly mistreated young Phoolan. Nirmal Panday is outstanding as Vikram, the bandit who has the courage to tell his men that they must respect women. The film is brilliantly directed by Shekhar Kapur, who is probably best known to American audiences as the director of the 1998 film Elizabeth.
Video Rating: 4/5 3D Rating: NA
Audio Rating: 4.5/5
Special Features Rating: 2.5/5
Also included is a typically informative booklet with an insightful essay by Julie Kirgo, who helpfully describes what happened to Phoolan Devi in the years following the release of Bandit Queen.
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
Bandit Queen is an exciting and gut-wrenching film about unspeakable atrocities inflicted upon a woman who refused to let those atrocities destroy her spirit. It also will cause many viewers to reflect upon the way that religious extremism has been used around the world by men to subjugate women. Lately it is mostly Islamic extremism that we hear about, but this film makes it clear that radical Islam does not hold a monopoly on treating women like property.
This Twilight Time release is a limited edition of 3,000 copies, so readers interested in purchasing it should go to the Screen Archives website and confirm that copies are still available.
Reviewed By: Richard Gallagher
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