By now, even the Grey Lady knows about Provoked, the new Jag Mundhra biopic starring TMBWITW as Kiranjit Ahluwalia and Naveen Andrews as her abusive husband. The actual story behind the movie is a horrific one:
Ahluwalia arrived in Britain in 1979 from India, aged 24, following an arranged marriage… Deepak immediately began to abuse her. ” … He would push me about, yank my hair, hit me and drop heavy pans on my feet…” Deepak also raped her frequently, telling her that this was his right.[After 10 years, in 1989] One night, when she had gone to sleep after cooking Deepak’s dinner, he woke her up and demanded money. When she refused, he tried to break her ankles by twisting them. He then picked up a hot iron and held it to her face. Eventually Deepak fell asleep and Ahluwalia was consumed with the rage she had suppressed for 10 years. Approaching him with a can of petrol, she poured it over Deepak’s feet and set them alight… [Link]
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p>Originally convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, her case was taken up by the Asian advocacy group Southall Black Sisters (SBS) who found her new counsel and sought a retrial.
Following a campaign, led by SBS, Ahluwalia’s conviction was quashed on appeal in 1992. The court accepted some new evidence … [and] Ahluwalia admitted manslaughter at the retrial…
Ahluwalia’s successful appeal against her murder conviction set a historic precedent – that women who kill as a result of severe domestic violence should not be treated as cold-blooded murderers. As Ahluwalia says, “I never intended to kill him, I just wanted him to stop hurting me…” [Link]
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p>Ahluwalia became a cause celebre, a household name who was later honored in an unusual ceremony that included both Cherie Blair and Spice Girl Mel B.
As usual with biopics, there is some controversy over the liberties taken in the process of making the movie. The director is entirely unapologetic:
The director ‘Jag’ Jagmohan Mundhra in his defence said “Even if you tell a true story, a true story is never really a true story. How do you define the truth? None of us were really there and obviously the recollections of people who were there have changed now. Ultimately I do have to tell an engaging story. If I can’t tell an engaging story no matter what cause is at stake, nobody will see it…” [Link]
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p>Some of these changes, such as merging two activists into a single character, seem minor to me. Others, like creating an important white lawyer character (played by Robbie Coltrane) for the appeal stage, while removing Rohit Sanghvi who was the lawyer who helped SBS create the grounds for the appeal, are unfortunate but pretty conventional changes. Movies about minorities often replace a minority character with a white one so that the largely white audience has somebody to identify with. It’s even better if this is the character who swoops in from the outside to save the day.
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p>Two changes, however, go to the heart of the story and really bother me. The first is the change of Kiranjit Ahluwalia from a woman with a factory job into a housewife. The accusation levelled in cases like Ahluwalia’s is always that the battered woman could have left instead of fighting back. The change in Ahluwalia’s status dodges the accusation, and in doing so, implicitly lends it support. That bothers me. It’s as if the director felt that she wouldn’t be sympathetic enough, and so he had to make her more helpless. It’s as if he felt he couldn’t defend the complexity of her situation to the audience, and therefore removed it altogether.
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p>Similarly, the movie depicts Deepak Ahluwalia as an alcoholic (the Wikipedia page implies that he was not). Again, in simplifying the story this way, I think it does a disservice to real women in real situations with abusers. Real life abused women aren’t always confined to their houses. Real abusers aren’t all drug addicts or alcoholics.
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p>What baffles me is why Mundhra felt these changes were necessary. Ahluwalia’s actual story was sympathetic enough to make her a celebrity in the UK. This real life story is very similar to that of Francine Hughes, and the TV movie based on that story was quite successful. The recent success of Ray and Walk the Line shows that audiences like stories about ambiguous characters, and the true story is sensational enough that it would have gone over quite well with Bollywood audiences. I wish he had trusted the audience a bit more.
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The fictional and real life Kiranjeet Ahluwalias |
I think pretty much all states in the US have enacted or recognized some version of the Battered Wife Syndrom.
Syndrome*
Those are classic Hollywood/Bollywood plot devices. Remember in Philadelphia, the lawyer was homophobic? It’s all about the unexpected/outsider support at a critical point. Though the White Man as Saviour motif is slightly wince-worthy. And as for the drunk, abusive husband, well that’s Bollywood all over. One wonders if desi audiences, whether in desh or in Britain, would be as sympathetic to a short-haired, factory-working woman with grievances that are still probably controversial among desis anywhere (the man’s right to sex, even forced sex with his wife, and to “vent his anger” at her, even if the dowry business is now frowned upon) as they would be to a long-suffering doe-eyed housewife with a drunken husband.
It goes without saying, I hope, that I don’t subscribe to these ideas – just trying to put myself in the position of the director figuring out his audience.
I attended screening of JagMohan Mundhra’s film Bawandar, that was followed by a Q&A with him, where he explained his deviations made in that film as well. It’s his MO, nothing new.
30% approval rating on RottenTomatoes.com. OUCH!
You know you made a bad movie, when critic’s look past the horrible events of the true story and trash it anyway.
For a man known for smutty Desploitation flicks, this might actually be a huge improvement.
Thas cold. As someone who’s met the guy, I feel he gets ripped on a lot, particularly for his past oeuvre. I guess that makes me the apologist voice. Bawandar wasn’t bad a film, but that’s because I think Nandita Das is particularly classy, I enjoyed her performance in the movie Fire as well.
I suspect the changes were made to make the movie more dramatic…poor, homebound ignorant immigrant housewife at the mercy of an alcoholic husband who can’t control his anger.
However, I’d argue that the truth is actually more dramatic because for all intents and purposes, they were like you and me. They could be the Indian couple you see every day at the temple, or the the uncle and aunt you meet with once a month. The reality is that most abusive households don’t require the ingredients of a repressed wife or an alcoholic husband to become a reality. That in my opinion, is much scarier.
A couple of years ago the British government did some kind of tax break thing for foreign flimmakers to make movies in Britain. Indian companies were given an incentive to stimulate movie production in the UK industry. Jag Mundhra made about 3 movies back to back in London — one of them was Provoked, the other was a soft porn called Private Moments , about an Indian girl’s sexual adventures in London. The other one was called Natasha, about ‘a young Russian foreign exchange student arrives at the home of the vicar of a very proper english village whose residents are more than scandalised when her secret colorful past is suddenly revealed’.
BBC 2 made a documentary about ‘Bollywood in Britain’ which was shown last year, which was all about Mundhra making his soft porn movies, and in a particular cringeworthy scene, he directed a sex scene on London streets. Nothing about ‘Provoked’ was shown in the documentary.
Well, for some reason I find such unapologetic sleaze and
B movie, Z Movie directorial talent quite endearing. Sadly, as you would expect, he makes a complete hash of ‘Provoked’, blustering artlessly like the clumsy and tenth rate directorial hack that he is. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to his next movie with barely concealable excitement, the title of which promises more subtlety and cinematic greatness: Backwaters aka Kama Sutra 3: Love PotionYou are right. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Roger Ebert worked w/ Russ Meyer.
10 was meant for HMF.
Ah Shodan, if only he was a Russ Meyer!
It’s a harrowing and inspiring story. I wish he had watched In the Name of the Father, the Daniel Day Lewis film, based on the true story of Gerry Conlon, an Irish man who was wrongly accused of being an IRA terrorist in the 1970’s, tortured and framed by the police and imprisoned for 15 years. That’s the best ‘wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit and overcomes judicial adversity’ prison and lawyers movie I’ve seen.
The Grey Lady review links to the wrong movie. Thanks for the correct link, Ennis. I agree, Anglo appellate lawyer, no job, and alcohol factored in all make for a more clichéd view of both the nature of abuse and possible remedies.I’m going to see this one asap.
Ennis – any idea when it will be playing here? I’ve heard about random one-time showings and know it released in the UK, but haven’t heard of any final dates for the US.
Ennis
Your statement:
It’s as if the director felt that she wouldn’t be sympathetic enough, and so he had to make her more helpless.
I find this very troubling. I believe that this is partly driven from a male-centric, patriachal view that a woman cannot be strong enough by herself. (Either she needs to be propped by men or is a freak.) One director I have particular issues on this is Shekhar Kapur. I found his “Queen Elizabeth” and “Phoolan Devi” claptrap because of this attitude. After viewing his “Queen Elizabeth” I read about 10 biographies of QE and I have to tell you Kapur’s interpretration of QE is pitiful, misogynistic, and reductive.
His liberties with Phoolan Devi’s story were so egregious that I almost had a stroke starting with the credits. I had the opportunity to see Phoolan Devi interviewed twice on Indian TV (once before she entered politics and once after) and I have to say that she was an amazing woman. (She proved that literacy has nothing to do with intelligence, strength, wit, and sheer presense.) There is absolutely NO correlation between the Phoolan Devi of Shekhar Kapur’s movie and the real woman. Mala Sen’s bio of Phoolan Devi is fantastic and worth a read.
I just don’t get it. When the real story is so much more fabulous/inspiring/amazing why reduce the woman to a shell?
sp
Really? What in particular struck you as misogynistic and reductive in his depiction of Queen Elizabeth?
I think it is the perfect opposite of that. Elizabeth lived in a time of extreme misogyny. Kapur’s movie shows how she overcomes the plots against her to take her place as the rightful sovreign of England and become one of the greatest and strongest women in world history.
He’s made a sequel, which I can’t wait to see, it’s called ‘The Golden Age’ and looks great, you can see the trailer here.
I think you’re wide off the target in calling Kapur’s depiction of Elizabeth mysoginistic. But would be interested in reading your justification for that.
The great thing about Shekhar Kapur in ‘Elizabeth’ is that he directs it as a mafia movie. The scheming and plotting and back-stabbing of the English court in the late 16th Century would put the Borgia’s and a nest of snakes to shame. He filmed it as The Godfather or The Sopranos (even though it was made before the Sopranos I know, just using an example) —- anyone with an idea of the time too, England was riven with religious conflict, plots against the monarchy by Catholic rebels, the Pope and the Vatican had declared it to be a holy and righteous thing to kill the Queen of England, the French were propping up Mary Queen of Scots, the Spanish were on the verge of invading, England was under threat of being conquered and dismembered, it was bankrupt and riven with religious violence on inquisition levels. Elizabeth had no choice but to be helped by Francis Walshingham and other men — that’s just the way it was. That’s reality. The movie ends on the verge of her becoming the fearless Queen of legend, toughened up by circumstance and duty, transformed in two hours of screen time from a hesitant and weak innocent. How can you say that’s misogynistic?
By the way, the script of Elizabeth and The Golden Age was by a screenwriter called Michael Hirst, not Kapur.
I watched Bandit Queen and thought it brought out the brutality of the feudal misogyny that brutalised Phoolan Devi very well — and it is brutal and difficult to watch. I don’t know how you could make a movie about that subject without showing it explicitly. Either way, his movies have shown him sensitive to the plight of women and I think it’s kind of devaluing the idea of misogyny to apply it to him. I actually think that they are subtle and complex characterisations of both Elizabeth and Phoolan Devi. The point about not being true to Phoolan Devi may be fair — but then movies based on real life people and stories are always going to be vulnerable to criticism on that front. And cinema always has to condense, simplify in some senses, by the very nature of the medium.
Me too!! The only movie I have seen by this guy (I think it was him), is a gem called “Divine Lovers”, which was well..divine ;).
Don’t waste your time on the movie, Provoked. It was horribly made, no real plot line, it was choppy and unfocused…read the book, “Circle of Light” (it might be rereleased with the title “Provoked”) instead…
they cut MANY details that make the story harder to bear. for example, (and keep in mind I read the book about 12 years ago) if I remember right, she tried leaving her husband and was told by her family to go back.
It’s on in AMB Loew’s at Times Square. Try moviefone and the other thing, fandango. Thanks, SM Intern!
Red Snapper
We are very far apart on our views of the two movies and so I will comment very very briefly.
What I found reductive and misogynistic of Shekar Kapur’s portrayal of Queen Elizabeth was he showed her being managed, manipulated, and in awe of men around her. In the movie, what can one make of her at the end, donning the white lead mask-like makeup because her heart was broken by a man? Biographically untrue but made for such good Hollywood nonsense. Her biographies (from her times, after, and in the modern times) indicate a totally different character. In her bios, she is clearly stated as the one extremely clever, bright, managing, manipulating, and intriguing and using everyone around right from the time her sister imprisioned her at age 14…(At no time was she hesitant, innocent, or weak.) That is not the Elizabeth of Shekar Kapur’s movie.
As far as Phoolan Devi is concerned, what totally ticks me off that he took a powerful character and showed her like an idiot easily distracted by pretty doodads (admiring jewelery in a smashed up jeweler’s case while her men plough down the upper caste men in the Behmai massacre), roaming the chambal valley in the end like an animal with 2 half-wit followers, her name translated in the beginning…these are some of the things I remember from the movie, which I saw over 10 years ago.
Phoolan Devi took over her lover’s gang in the hugely feared Chambal Valley (and one of the most violent, misogynistic, and backward parts of India) and consolidated 1 other gang with hers plus the fact that she had become so feared that the Indian Govt negotiated with her for months to surrender and gave into her long list of demands. THAT woman clearly is not the Phoolan Devi of Shekar Kapur’s movie.
Sonya
Thanks Amrita =)
Red Snapper
BTW, I have no problems with the depiction of the violence, the rapes, the parading naked of Phoolan Devi in Shekar Kapur’s movie. Those are the key pieces of the story and without the violence there would have been no Phoolan Devi.
My problem with SK is the depiction of the character. It made absolutely no sense to me. Here is this woman who is gang raped several times, paraded naked in a village, arrested and raped by the police, runs away to join a daciot gang, and becomes the lover/mistress of the leader of the gang. Great and fine.
BUT, on what basis would the absolutely brutal daciots accepted a woman as their leader once their leader is killed? The movie absolutely shows NO reason why a Chambal Valley daciot accept a MERE woman to be his leader. It would have made way more sense for her to have become the mistress of the next leader. Not only that she managed to get one other equally brutal gang to join hers? Not her roti-making or love-making skills for sure!!!
You really ought to read Mala Sen’s bio of Phoolan Devi to see what a disservice Kapur has done to a strong woman’s character and story.
And, pardon my french here: who the hxll in India would tranlate her name as “Goddess of Flowers”. (Devi is suffix used for women in that area just as Bai in Maharashtra and bhainji in Punjab) Can we pander anymore to the western notions of Eastern brutality and exotification?
Sonya
Apologies for the typos and missing words in my posts. Too agitated while typing does it to me 🙂
Sonya
Sonya, You may be interested in Putlibai’s story. OG in every sense, she was one of the most feared Chambal dacoits in 50s. No idea how a woman w/ just one arm managed to rule a bunch of murderers. Google doesn’t have much info on her. Check out Taroon Coomar Bhaduri’s Chambal: The Valley of Terror if you get a chance. Here’s a Telegraph link that touches on woman-dacoit phenomenon.
Telegraph link is from 2003, btw.
Sonya, let’s accept for a moment that the depiction of Elizabeth was reductive (which I don’t, but for arguments sake). Is that the same thing as being misogynistic? Let’s just say it’s a failure of art to reflect the complexity of a character. How does that transmute into a hatred of all women?
Really? At no time can it be imagined that in the formation of her character she would have experienced self doubt, hesitancy, confusion? Come on, that’s projecting a reductive ideal to make your case, like religious people who don’t brook criticism of their prophets or god men because they claim they had no flaws at all.
A young woman thrust into the role of Queen of England, at a time when treason and invasion and assassination were the oxygen of the entire court? She was manipulated by the men around her because she had no choice — she had to maintain the Tudor line, being the only surviving child of Henry VIII — that is how royal courts operated. How can reflecting this in a dramatic narrative be evidence that Shekhar Kapur is a misogynist, and that the work is itself a work that manifests a pathological hatred of women? Especially when he is wonderfully sensitive to her emotions and psychology as a woman trapped inside this world of men and power?
I think you’re projecting your own biases back onto this, which seem incredibly doctrinaire to me. It is also perplexing because it doesn’t seem to take into account the real historical and social context of her ascension to the throne, and that she was manipulated and influenced by the court to be the figurehead of her lineage. At all costs she had to survive and maintain her line to preserve the primacy of the Anglican Protestant Church in face of the Catholic threat —- the threat of treason within the court, invasion from outside, and divinely mandated assassination by the Vatican. For them, it would have been the end of world. She had to act out the role that she was born to. Elizabeth is a movie that tells the story of that young woman becoming hardened and accepting her historical destiny. I fear that it’s quite simplistic to say it’s just a piece of misogynistic art.
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Never? Not once? Come on, because Elizabeth is depicted as being hesitant, innocent and weak as a young woman, this equates to a pathological hatred of all women? This is such an overstatement, it’s off the scale. What then do we make of Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, or any other female character in literature or cinema that isn’t idealised to our ideological satisfaction? Are they representations of misogyny too? Plus, how does the imaginative depiction of doubt and weakness in a woman become a bad thing? This is part of everybody’s experience of life, part of their humanity.
Is a depiction of her having had feelings of romantic love also misogynistic? So imagining her as a woman having her love sundered is evidence of a pathological hatred of women? I’m worried that by the time you finish reading my defence of the depiction of Elizabeth here you’ll also be calling me a misogynist!
Yes — she has accepted her destiny as the figurehead of England, the divine Queen. She has experienced and been thwarted in her personal desires and understands that she must carry the burden of the court, the Anglican Protestant Church (she was considered to be Jesus Christ’s living protector against Rome) and her nation. She is no longer the hesitant and innocent Elizabeth we see at the start. It’s fantastic — I can’t wait to see the second part of Kapur’s trilogy — this next one has the Spanish Armada preparing to invade Britain, the killing of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots, Sir Walter Raleigh, how exciting! (check her out on horse preparing to lead and inspire the army to battle in the trailer!)
Part three will deal with her love for the Earl of Essex (biographers described her as being bessotted by him), and that ends most tragically of all. And not a misogynistic particle in any frame of the movie.
And AR Rahman does the soundtrack — how groovy.
Damn, that was a long post! Sorry Sonya I didn’t realise how long it was, don’t feel you have to read it all if you don’t want to, got carried away.
I think your criticisms about Bandit Queen have more weight than Elizabeth, although I’d put that down more to narrative implausibility, the limitations of the medium, than an intrinsic misogyny. Anyway, nice debating you!
Definately agree that the use of the word mysogynist was uncalled for.
Red Snapper, Madhu Kishwar and Arundhati Roy on Bandit Queen. I haven’t seen Elizabeth, which probably was an overreaction to BQ. Your post and the always great Cate Blanchett are causing second thoughts.
Red Snapper
Wish I could speak to as opposed to typing it all down. Am very much enjoying the debate but will have to stop shortly…have to leave work to pick up my daughter.
Anyways, no I do not equate reductive with misogyny at all. The thing is that I read Phoolan Devi’s bio and had followed most of the newspaper accounts in India before seeing Shekar Kapur’s movie. It totally turned me off because I found that not only did it pander to the West but was also very unjust to Phoolan as a person. If he had said that he was inspired by her story, it is possible I might not have had such a strong reaction against it but he said it was a real story. (Yes, yes, I know…it is silly of me to hold him to that.)
Then, came Elizabeth…after viewing the movie, I read the bios and then went back to the movie. Again, perhaps, I expected too much from a Hollywood movie. I felt distinctly through the movie that Shekar Kapur does not like strong women and that the only reason women got to be strong were the shaping hands of men and not any innate strength within them.
I had not thought this before but perhaps you are right, that this might be my own bias against Shekar Kapur after the first round.
Re imaging her love being sundered etc. being indicative of a pathological hatred of women on the part of Shekar Kapur…of course not. Though I must admit that as a woman, I felt uncomfortable watching characters in the two movies and have debated the points you raise many times before with other people.
I do not expect that movie characters should idealized or not idealized to my expectation…on the contrary I expect they be depicted to the truth central to their character. (And, this might be too difficult for Hollywood or Bollywood). And, in both movies, I did not find Shekar Kapur’s versions to gell at all with the accepted reality of the two women.
sp
I have managed to locate this delightful sounding film on the interweb. Is it worth the 2 hours of my life?
Two hours of watching Aishwarya Rai speak in English? I saw Bride and Prejudice. Surprised I made it through alive without clawing my ears out.
Cheers Sonya, and thanks for the links rudie
Oooo, but did you see Mistress of Spices, Adaidai? I take it back, Bridge & Prejudice is worse.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I trust Kenyandesi for a critique. It’s just so disheartening because when you meet folks like SBS or Kiranjeet Ahluwalia, I am just so humbled and so awed. I can’t even begin to fathom the emotional and physical hell these women have lived through. These changes to the movie are dismaying and significant. ARGH.
I found Bandit Queen very powerful, but when I watched it the second and third time I was struck by how Phoolan’s actions and major life decisions are traced so directly from rape and sexual abuse, in a rather Bollywoodish Wronged Woman Seeks Revenge way (like that b-film Zakhmi Aurat). Surely she must have been power hungry and loved the loot too.
I also remember when the film came out and the real Phoolan was still alive, she was quite angry (in statements to the press) that here was this film that purported to be based on her life, that showed her in some very vulnerable moments (she had a problem with the nude scenes) and that she hadn’t been consulted on. Now I think those scenes were integral to the film, but I certainly understand Phoolan’s protectiveness of her deepest personal traumas and low moments. Didn’t respect Shekhar Kapur for doing that. I haven’t read Mala Sen’s book so I don’t know about the other liberties taken with the text.
Whoah – just read the link to the Arundhati Roy piece that someone put up. So Shekhar Kapur’s film pretty much made up most of the rape incidents, and that Phoolan’s clashes with the law and with the patriarchy, as it were, had much more to do with land disputes than sexual abuse.
As a feminist, I reacted more strongly to the upper-caste abusive men storyline, I’ll admit. It’s powerful, and it does represent, in a way, the experience of a lot of women. But if it’s a fabrication, it’s a fabrication, and Shekhar Kapur should not have presented it as a True Story.
Boy, gives a whole new meaning to this. I do think the example sentence they give is timely too.
The land dispute (essential her cousin occupied a field that her father owned plus the tree that was growing on it) that led to Phoolan Devi’s arrest by the police is very interesting as it involved her male cousin who got the police involved and upper caste men (he was friends with a couple of the men), which led to Phoolan’s arrest and gang rape by the police and much later rape by the upper caste men as a direct result of this land dispute. But, if you really examine the incident, it shows how patriarchy trumphs caste politics when necessary. (But that would have been too sophisticated for Mr. Kapur. As you can tell, I’m still pissed off :-))
She never denied the gang rape but she used the colloquial term “bahut mazaq kia”…they played with me…not a literal translation but which means rape. She always vehemently denied that she was present at the Behmai massacre of the upper caste men which was led by the gang leader and her lover, Vikram (I might be getting his name wrong). What she said was that when she described what the upper caste men had done to her to Vikram he was enraged and decided to seek revenge. But, she discouraged him as she thought no good would come of it. But, he insisted and the comment she made to Mala Sen was something to the effect “what can you do when men take it into their heads that their honor is at stake. They stop thinking with their brains and you can’t stop them.”
I think my point in all of this is that it was not a simple story of rape and revenge. It was extremely complex with lots of interesting intersections of patriarchy, upper caste politics, women’s status, the corruption of the police, her own strength and refusal to back down from the land dispute etc. But, she was a driving force not just pushed around by events.
None of this comes through in the movie.
Sonya
@ adaiadai: Two hours of watching Aishwarya Rai speak in English? I saw Bride and Prejudice. Surprised I made it through alive without clawing my ears out.
Now, I am not a fan of Aishwarya Rai’s acting abilities or think Bride and Prejudice was a masterpeice, but I dont understand what your problem was with her english. Dont want to make any assumptions here, but was it the diction? accent?
SP said:
in a rather Bollywoodish Wronged Woman Seeks Revenge way (like that b-film Zakhmi Aurat). Surely she must have been power hungry and loved the loot too.
You hit the nail on the head. That is one of my key problems with the Bandit Queen. The list of demands she negotiated with the Indian govt are eye popping and what is more that she got them. (One of them included having her 10-year old brother getting a position in the state police when he turned 18!) It is a direct reflection of the extent of her power, rule of fear, and ruthlessness in ruling the Chambal Valley.
I promise this is my absolute last post on Phoolan Devi.
sp
Aishwarya acted horribly in this film. Just wimpering facial expressions and that’s it.
Hmmm… I actually liked the film – not for it’s directing or cinematography debut (I would definitely agree that it was amateur at best) but rather, I was moved by the film. Kiranjit’s story had an impact on me and I could completely understand why she took the actions she did. Is that not the point of the movie is? For us to get a “glimpse” into her life and of her strife? I know for me, I felt that pain. And also, I think Kiranjit saw this movie herself and approved of it. Who are we, then, to criticize it? Just a thought…
I am rather surprised that people here are ready to trash Shekhar Kapur for supposedly falsifying Phoolan Devi’s life in the movie, but accepting Phoolan’s self-serving interviews to Mala Sen at face value! Remember that when Phoolan was speaking with Mala Sen, she was in prison, planning a career in politics and it suited her to change the story as per the requirements of future life outside jail.
Phoolan’s complicity in the Behmai massacre was part of folklore and contributes largely to the growth of her clout in the Chambal valley. She started being respected and feared after the massacre. Till then she actively farmed that incident to increase her repute. But after surrendering, that same incident became a liability and it suited her to say that she wasn’t even there! How believable is that?
The problem seems to be that her being a woman has greater weight to many commentator here than the fact that she was a cold blooded killer – murderer of innocents. The fact that she had been abused and raped does not ever justify such retaliation. Yet her version of events seems more convincing than that of a serious filmmaker – so much so that he becomes a misogynist because his version tallies more with her reputation rather than the sanitized version told to a credulous reporter in jail?
Honestly it was not the diction or the accent, so much as the delivery, and the strange emphasis she’d place on certain words. Which is bizarre, cause in interviews, she speaks perfectly fine. (Also I can’t stand her, which naturally prejudices me against everything she does, I confess)
I love the bride. She seems like the Bollywood Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachhan.. Looking pretty..!!