When director Arthur Penn was pressed to explain how his future masterwork, Bonnie And Clyde, would deal with violence, he responded, “We’re in the Vietnamese War, this film cannot be immaculate and sanitized and bang-bang. It’s fucking bloody.”
That was in the earliest days of what would come to be known as The Hollywood Renaissance. Young filmmakers like Penn, Coppola, and Scorsese were suddenly given more power than most directors in the Classical Era, and many of these new talents were pointing their cinematic mirrors directly at the war they were so passionately against. How could they pretend the action depicted in their films was anything less gruesome than the newsreel footage coming back from the east on every American television? Whose innocence was there to protect with such atrocities overseas?
Not long after this exciting transformative period in American Cinema, Phoolan Devi was customarily sold as a child bride in India. After being raped, she ran away and spent most of her life being beaten and raped until she joined a gang of bandits and sought the harshest reciprocity. In 1992, when Shekhar Kapur set out to tell her story on film, much like the directors in the late ’60s, he didn’t pull any punches (or bullets), either. A close-up of Seema Biswas, as Phoolan, starts the picture. She speaks: “My name is Phoolan Devi, sisterfuckers!” Translation: “You’re going to watch this shit exactly as it went down.”
Apparently not EVERY Bollywood movie is a four-hour-long musical about getting married.
I haven’t been able to track down any information on the film’s historical accuracy, and that leads me to believe there isn’t any reason to call “foul”. This is a very real, punishing story about a girl who was brave enough not to accept her role (essentially becoming a slave) in the absurd caste system of her home country. As a woman, she is nothing more than a burden to her father. Unable to give her to another man, she becomes a constant embarrassment to him. When she successfully fights off a sexual assault against a man from a higher caste, she fails to defend herself in a public village tribunal, and she is forced to leave. Her father weeps, not for her honor, but for his own.
Not too many rapes after that, she finally joins that gang of bandits I mentioned earlier. There, she finds a few stray moments of happiness, and even a kind and trustworthy lover. None of this lasts long, however, once a pair of higher caste brothers is released from prison and rejoins the gang. Then, she is raped by an entire village of men. Once she manages to regain her sanity, she leads a gang of her own and pulls some Robin Hood-esque heroics. She executes that village that raped her, and her fame grows so large (as well as her popularity among the lower caste) that the authorities are unwilling to kill her.
I don’t want to make this movie sound repetitive. She is constantly raped during the course of the film, but unless you’re missing something resembling a soul, your rancor should be growing exponentially with each new assault. What we come to understand, early in the film, is that the few “rights” a woman had while she was married in those days, are so far gone to her in Phoolan’s “escaped bride” situation, she may as well not be human. The atrocities these privileged men commit on her are carried out with no shame at all. They believe she deserves nothing better.
This bloody film’s surprisingly (and unfortunately) fresh social relevance isn’t its only virtue. It is a thrill in both script and form, but be warned, it is not for the faint of heart. The movie is indeed painful and often hard to watch, but it is also exhilarating and thought provoking. Watching Phoolan take her ultimate revenge starts to look desperate and insane near the end, and that nagging question scratches at me. Is she any better than her tormentors in so savagely murdering them? Then I think, how can she not be? In the West, we find so much comfort in the justice system our democracy supposedly provides us. How often does it give any solace to victims of sexual assault? The system she had did nothing to protect her until she had killed enough evil people to be considered a threat to the national government. In the absence of justice, what other course is there than grisly vengeance?
THE PACKAGE
These images are illustrative only, and don’t do the transfer justice. Blu-ray treats this movie very nicely — looks great!
Feature Commentary With Shekhar Kapur: Fascinating guy to listen to. Many insights.
Isolated Score Track
Booklet Featuring Essay by Julie Kirgo: Always interesting.
