Bollywood and Bandit Queen

"You can call it rape in your fancy language. Do you have any idea what it's like to live in a village in India? What you call rape, that kind of thing happens to poor women in the villages every day. It is assumed that the daughters of the poor are for the use of the rich. They assume that we're their property. In the villages the poor have no toilets, so we must go to the fields, and the moment we arrive, the rich lay us there; we can't cut the grass or tend to our crops without being accosted by them. We are the property of the rich…they wouldn't let us live in peace; you will never understand what kind of humiliation that is. If they wanted to rape us, to molest us, and our families objected, then they'd rape us in front of our families."-Phoolan Devi (Rampertab)

In order to discuss the structure of Bandit Queen, based on a biographical book about Phoolan Devi, a discussion of Bollywood must be ensued beforehand. Without knowledge of this leading edge film complex , analysis of this film’s structure would be pointless. Bollywood has the potential to rival movie industries of other nations, and offers profound uniqueness in movie making. Bandit Queen is considered by some the film that put Hindi cinema on the world map. A depiction of a true heroine, it stays away from the standard set, and reaches out to try something new.

Bollywood, a parody on Hollywood, is a huge film industry in India. The "B" stands for Bombay, now Mumbai, the largest city in India. An article on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s news site states that over 800 films are made each year, (twice as many as Hollywood), and that 14 million Indians flock to cinemas each day to partake of films which include colorful scenery, lots of music and dancing, with a touch of sweet romance, sans the sexuality prominently displayed in Hollywood offerings. Outside of India, Britain is the largest consumer of Bollywood films.

One difference between Bollywood and Hollywood is the amount of funding available. Bollywood suffers from a cash flow problem, but is able to overcome this by using the same backdrops for differing films, the same actors, and sometimes actors can be filming on four different sets at once, using handwritten scripts (Bollywood Extra).

According to a round table discussion at Frames 2004, a global forum on script writing, discussion on Bollywood, scripting revealed some problems.. Like Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush, many Bollywood films are shot on the spot, without the benefit of a script. However, this leads to problems such as a lack of funding for projects, long production times due to lack of scheduling, and unmanageable sets (Frames 2004). A lack of trained and willing writers is part of the dilemma and the forum featured speakers discussing the need for formal training for writers and a copyright law enforcement program for India. Piracy, according to the BBC is the biggest problem facing Bollywood producers.

Some of the features of Hindi film include its high emotionalism, and lack of subtlety in sets, narratives, music or acting. Often traditional Indian values are shown at odds with modernity and Hindi filmmakers who refuse to adopt Western ideas of realism, instead prefer to play up on remakes of offerings from traditional Sanskrit theatre, folk theatre and Hindi epics (Jaikumar).

Until the talkies of the 40’s, using mythological stories as backdrops for films Hindi films were able to be inclusive offered a firm sense of nationalistic pride. However, due to the many differing peoples and languages of the country, the advancement of sound in cinema then became the enemy of Hindi filmmakers. They therefore devised a formula.

Although a program similar to Hollywood’s Paramount Decrees was adopted by the Indian government in the 40’s to determine "good cinema," many producers get around the lack of sexual narratives by enlisting music with lyrics more sexually suggestive than the narratives themselves.

The advent of "masala films" of the l940’s, demanded that Bollywood producers offer a little of everything in every film. Action, drama, romance, singing and dancing became standard fare for movie goers, no matter the film, thus ensuring the largest viewing audience possible (.Jaikumar).

Hence, we begin our discussion of Bandit Queen. With its repeated scenes of young Phoolan Devi’s continued rapes and abuse by the upper caste Thakurs, one can only ask themselves, "Is this story for real? Obviously, critics both hail and slam the movie depicting Devi’s "autobiographical" film. It is supposed to be based on true diaries of the victim turned bandit turned MP in the Lok Sabha, who was later gunned down outside of her apartment. However, about an hour into the film, we are asking ourselves, could all of the abuse this lower caste woman suffers be true, and more than that, are members of the upper caste this harsh to women of the lower castes?

Director Shekhar Kapur, who later went on to direct Elizabeth with Cate Blanchette and Four Feathers with Heath Leger, said the following in an interview with London’s Financial Times newspaper,

"If I could describe Indian cinema in a word I would say it's explosive, because of the way it's catching on. Indian and Asian cultures are going to be recognized as the new pop cultures globally. Everything and anything that's Indian - yoga, fashion, music - has suddenly now become more popular and mainstream in the west. Indian movies can also make the crossover." He believes it will take no more than 10 years for Asia to dominate the entertainment business. "The sheer size of the market potential would lead to a process of reverse cultural colonization " (Bala).

However, feminist film theorist, Arundhati Roy, says that the director took the information given to him, and beefed it up for the big screen. She said she spoke with Devi who assured her that she wasn’t even at the Behmai Massacre, and that the rape scenes in the movie were not depicted correctly and made her feel violated all over again. Devi’s legendary status was increased with the release of Bandit Queen before she was even able to view it. She requested to do so and was turned down by the director. (Roy). It would seem that although she was a "legend," and one worthy to enough to meet, the director seemed to feel that it was unnecessary.

Stardust states, "There’s no dearth of brutality and cruelty in ‘Bandit Queen’. So much so that after a while, you begin to wonder if cinema — with its inherent limitations as an escapist medium — is suitable to communicate the ugliness and bleakness of a milieu where caste and gender together diminish the status of a human being, born on the wrong side of the social line. "

Minus the musical dances sequences, this film is not so much about sticking with the standard in Hindi filmmaking, but is actually an attempt to change the way of filmmaking in Bollywood. Perhaps with a more documentary style of making film, and biographical historical pieces to remind the audience of Indian culture, Bollywood, due to successes such as Bandit Queen will continue to be churned out. And this film while not adhering to the "traditional structure, offers a venue for the Bollywood filmmaker and his investor - the ability to be able to carry off the nationalism of making films about real people who are inspirational and representative of the trueness of the Indian culture as opposed to the British, Western view.

Works Cited

Bala, Sumathi. The Financial Times. August 28, 2004: 34.

Bollywood Extra. British Broadcasting Corporation. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/2003/bollywood/newsid_2683000/2683799.stm>

Creative Round table on Scripting for Films and Television, <http://www.ficci- frames.com/frames2001/Archives/2002/Synopsis/Scripting.htm> (29 Jan 05).

Jaikumar, Priya. World Literature Today. Bollywood Spectaculars. Oct-Dec 2002.

http://www.ou.edu/worldlit/onlinemagazine/2003winter/05-Oct-Dec03-Jaik.pdf (29 Jan 05).

Rampertab, Rakesh. Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen.<http://www.guyanaundersiege.com/Women/bandit%20queen.htm> (29 Jan 05).

Roy, Arundhati. Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen:The Great Indian Rape-Trick August 22, 1994. <http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/users/sawweb/sawnet/roy_bq1.html> (29 Jan 05).

Stardust. Bandit Queen. <http://www.stardustindia.com/display_Standard.asp?section=classics&subsection=&xml=November2003_classics_standard20> (30 Jan 05).