Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

sol- Based on the true story of a woman who rose from poverty and child abuse to become a respected outlaw and folk hero, 'Bandit Queen' tells a fascinating slice of an Indian history, even if Phoolan Devi herself (whose life is depicted) has disputed the film's accuracy. Set during the 1970s and 1980s, the antiquated values of villages where Devi grew up are striking, with child marriages a norm and women viewed as second class citizens, and the film has much power as a tale of overcoming circumstance. The film is, however, also incredibly slow- moving and while there are some well-handled abuse and torture scenes early on, it is only in the second half of the film that the story really becomes juicy with Devi deciding to fight back and become her own warrior. There is a particularly effective sequence in the final half hour in which the reactions of a baby girl convey all during a massacre. As mentioned though, there is something to be said for the restraint of the film's earlier abuse scenes, none of which are graphic. The swinging of a door open and closed is all that the filmmakers need here to convey the horrors of gang rape and the way the camera stays very much at a distance avoids a scene in which she is stripped turning exploitative. In short, this is a well-made film; sure, a little too slow-moving for its own good, but one hard to erase from the mind afterwards.

Benedict_Cumberbatch "Bandit Queen" is a controversial and groundbreaking Indian film (co-produced by Great Britain's "Channel Four") telling the real-life story of Phoolan Devi (Seema Biswas, excellent), a low-caste woman given to a husband at age 11 who runs away from him, is constantly violated by upper-caste males, until pairing with a handsome outlaw, Vikram Mallah (Nirmal Pandey), who shows her some respect and invites her to join his gang. Devi became a mythical national figure in her own lifetime (she had just been released from an 11-year prison term when the movie came out, and was murdered in 2001), hailed as "The Bandit Queen" or "Queen of the Ravines". Although at first Devi took legal action to ban the movie's exhibition in India (and it was actually banned for some time - after all, this is no Bollywood fantasy), she eventually changed her mind (plus, Channel Four paid her $60,000...).A lot has been said about the accuracy of everything portrayed on screen ("My life was much harder", Devi would have said after the first time she saw the movie). Just like he would do in 1998's successful "Elizabeth", Shekhar Kapur knows how to turn a larger than life, actual trajectory in a huge spectacle - but still keeping the essence of its core. Truth be told, this is one of those extraordinary sagas that if even half of what's portrayed on screen is real, it's already quite a journey. Kapur might have been a high-caste, city-bred man trying to portray the life of a brave and rebellious low-caste woman fighting for her survival - in a way that no other woman in her time had done, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know or doesn't have the right to try to depict this reality he doesn't directly belong to. How honest Kapur's original intentions were we can't know for sure, but that doesn't undermine his accomplishment here; this is a story that had to be told to a larger international audience. If a movie manages to work both as an adventurous spectacle and a tale of resurgence after national injustice and misfortunes, then it deserves to be seen. 8.5/10.

metallicmoor Irrespective of the accuracy of facts, Bandit Queen is a true story, its true because the themes it deals with hold as much truth today as they did way back in 1994. This movie is violent, powerful and thought provoking.The protagonist is a woman of flesh and blood, whose adversity brought out the best(or worst) out of her. Keeping the subjectivity aside, there is no doubt that Phoolan's character from a young girl of 8, who is married off by her father to clear a debt(pun intended), to a gang leader who goes on to become a leader of the lower caste, has evolved into a champion in her own right. Her portrayal is so powerful that the viewer is even willing to forgive her for a massacre.I can understand if the western audience is not able to appreciate this masterpiece, Bandit Queen needs to be 'studied' in the Indian context, and not just checked out in stereotypes. I may not be able to sell it on its universal appeal but its certainly a must watch for the Indian audience, its a shame that the movie had a delayed, overtly censored release in India.Bandit Queen is the story of a woman who fought against two odds in India, being a woman and that too a lower caste, her rebellious nature and inability to just give in caused her the most horrible experiences in life, which only went on to strengthen her into a self proclaimed goddess. She responded to violence with violence and dint become the submissive woman society wanted her to be. Call it divine justice or judiciary failure, had she killed a single person she would have been hanged, she killed 24 and got revered, respected and glorified.P.S # Whoever found her character "psychotic", needs to be sodomized at 8, gangraped by 10 men at a go and paraded naked. Then they should be asked- How normal do they feel?

Yadokari It may interest people to know that this film was made without any recourse to Phoolan Devi herself and, when she did finally see parts of it, was so enraged that she announced that the film was not to be shown in India or she would cover herself in petrol and set fire to herself. I do not know whether it was shown at all or not, but given her standing at the time as a rising politician, I doubt it. Since then, I saw a report that she has been ousted from office and charged with further crimes from her Dacoit days, and has gone into hiding as a result.Her own concerns aside, this is an excellent film, made all the more so by its refreshingly brutal approach; none of the rose-tinted melodrama one might expect from a typical indian film. It should be stressed that concerns about how feminist the film's messages really are and the like are essentially irrelevant: it's a true story. Her misgivings are, it seems, not with what is depicted but with the way in which the film depicts her.