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E107 o make a film that is exactly as long as the life of your subject.
But does "cut, alter, and adapt" include Distort and Falsify?
The Producers' (by now public, and written) refusal to show Phoolan the original version of the film (the one that has been seen and reviewed and is now on its World Tour) suggests that they know they have done her a terrible injustice. But they say they are not worried because they have a "fool-proof" (India Today, August 21st) contract with her. What does this imply? That they deliberately set out cheat and mislead her? That they conned an illiterate woman into signing away her rights? I don't know. I'm asking.
Surely the fact that they were dealing with an illiterate woman only increases their obligation to her? Surely it was up to them, to check and counter-check the facts with her? To read her the script, to fine-tune the details, to show her the rough-cut before the film was shown to the rest of the world?
Instead what do they do? They never meet her once. Not even to sign the contracts . They re-invent her life. Her loves. Her rapes. They implicate her in the murder of twenty-two men that she denies having committed. Then they try to slither out of showing her the film!
"Cut, alter and adapt"? -- is that what it's called?
Could it be that the film's success, and the Producers' (and Director's) blatant exploitation of this person, both have to do with the same thing? That she's a woman, that she's poor, and illiterate, and has (they assume) no court of appeal? Which is why she became a bandit in the first place? What they haven't got yet. The point that they seem to keep on missing (in the film, and otherwise), is that she's no victim. She's a fighter. Unfortunately, this time she's on their territory. Not hers.
FAfter I saw the film, which was about three weeks ago, I have met Phoolan several times. Initially, I did not speak of the film to her, because I believed that it would have been wrong of me to influence her opinion. The burden of my song so far, has been "show her the film." I only supported her demand that she had a right, a legal right to see the film that claims to be the true story of her life.
My opinion of the film has nothing to do with her opinion. Mine doesn't matter. Hers does. More than anyone else's.
Two days ago, on the 1st of September, when the Producer replied to Phoolan's legal notice, making it absolutely clear that he would not show her the original, international version of the film, (the version that has been written about, and so glowingly reviewed), I sat with her and told the sequence of events, scene by scene. The discrepancies, the departures, the outright fabrications are frightening. I wrote about some of them last week. I didn't know then just how bad it really was.
Phoolan didn't write any prison diaries. She couldn't. She narrated them to someone who was with her in jail. The writings were smuggled out and given to Mala Sen. Mala Sen pieced them together, and wrote first a script, then a book. The book presents several versions of the story. Including Phoolan's. The film doesn't, Mala Sen's book, and Bandit Queen the film differ radically, not just in fact, but in spirit. I believe that her film script was altered by the makers of the film. Substantially altered. It departs from the book as well as from Phoolan's version of her story.
Since I have not seen Phoolan's diaries, I can only read the extracts published in Mala Sen's book and assume that they are accurate. Mala Sen quotes her: "...what I am writing is read by many, and written by those I do not know so well..." What a terrible position to be in! What easy meat for jackals!
According to Mala Sen, Phoolan Devi was reluctant to even discuss rape:
There are various versions of what happened to Phoolan Devi after Vikram Mallah's death. When I spoke to her she was reluctant to speak of her bezathi (dishonour) as she put it, at the hands of the Thakurs. She did not want to dwell on the details and merely said "Un logo ne mujhse bahut mazak ki". I was not surprised at her reticence to elaborate. First of all, because we had an audience, including members of her family, other prisoners and their relatives. Secondly because we live in societies where a woman who is abused sexually ends up feeling deeply humiliated, knowing that many will think that it was her fault, or partly her fault. That she provoked the situation in the first place. Phoolan Devi, like many other women all over the world, feels she will only add to her own shame if she speaks of this experience.
Does this sound like a man who would have agreed to have her humiliation re-created for the world to watch? Does this sound like the book that a film replete with rape could be based on? Every time Mala Sen quotes Phoolan as saying " un logo ne mujhse bahut mazaak ki the Director of the film has assumed that she meant that she was raped.
"How else can a woman be expected to express the shame heaped on her...asks Kapur." (August 31st [1994], India Today) And in the film he does not shy away from dwelling on details. Oh no. That's woman stuff. When Phoolan won't provide him with the details, he goes ahead and uses the wholly vicarious account of some American journalist from "Esquire ". The man writes with skill and feeling. Almost as though he was there.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that whenever Phoolan says "mujhse mazaak ki" she does in fact mean that she was raped. Do they have the right to show it? In all it's explicit detail? This raises the question of an Individual's Right to Privacy. In Phoolan Devi's case, not just Privacy, Sexual Privacy. And not just infringement. Outright assault.
In the rape scenes in the film, (Phoolan Devi is shown being raped by her husband, raped by Babu Gujjar, raped by the police and gang-raped bv the Thakurs of Behmai), her humiliation and degradation could not possibly, be more explicit. While I watched this, I remember feeling that using the identity of a living woman, re-creating her degradation and humiliation for public consumption, was totally unacceptable to me. Doing it without her consent, without her specific, written repeated, whole-hearted, unambiguous, consent, is monstrous. I cannot believe that it has happened. I cannot believe that it is being condoned. I cannot believe that it is not a criminal offense.
If it were a fictional film, where rape was being examined as an issue, if it were a fictional character that was being raped, it would be an entirely different issue. I would be glad to enter into an argument about whether showing the rape was necessary, whether or not it was "exploitative". The Accused - a film that challenges accepted norms about what constitutes rape and what doesn't, hardly shows the act of rape at all! Bandit Queen on the other hand, has nothing intelligent to say about the subject beyond the fact that Rape is degrading and humiliating. Dwelling on the Degradation and the Humiliation is absolutely essential for the commercial success of the film. Without it, there would be no film. The intensity of these emotions is increased to fever-pitch because we're told - She's real . This happened.
And faithfully, our critics go home and write about it. Praise it to the skies.
Who are we to assess a living woman's rape? Who are we to decide how well done it was? How Brutal? How Chilling? How true-to-life? Who the hell are we?
Had I been raped, perhaps I would devote my every waking hour to call for stiffer legislation, harsher punishment for rapists. Perhaps I'd take lessons from Lorena Bobbitt. What I would never ever do, and I don't imagine that anyone else has (even those who loved the film so much) would either -- is to agree to have it re-created as entertainment cloaked in the guise of concern, for an audience that was going to pay to watch. It would be like being raped all over again. And ironically, the more skillful the Director, the greater would be my shame and humiliation.
I am disgusted that I was invited to Siri Fort to watch Phoolan Devi being raped - without her permission. Had I known that she had not seen the film, I would never have gone. I know that there are video tapes of Bandit Queen doing the rounds in Delhi drawing rooms. If any of you who reads this essay has a tape - please do the right thing. Show it to Phoolan Devi (since the Producers won't). Ask her whether she minds your watching or not.
Given all this, to call Phoolan Devi's protests and demands to see the film " Tantrums" (Amita Malik, 'Sunday', 28th August [1994]) and "Grumbling" (Sunday Observer, 21st August [1994] is so small-minded, so blinkered that it's unbelievable. And unforgiveable.
I've tried so hard to understand how it could possibly be that so many intelligent people have not seen through this charade. I can only think, that to them a "True Story' is just another kind of story. That "Truth" is merely a more exciting form of fiction. They don't believe that Phoolan Devi is real. That she actually exists. That she has feelings. Opinions. A mind. A Past. A father that she loved ( who didn't sell her for a second-hand bicycle). Her life, or what they know of it, is so implausible, so farfetched. So unlike what Life means to them. It has very little to do with what they associate with being "human".
They cannot put themselves in her shoes - and think what they'd feel if the film had done to them what it has done to her. The more "touched" among them don't denigrate her. They exalt her with their pity. From 'Woman' to 'Womanhood'.
Indeed the strength of the film is that it goes much beyond Phoolan Devi, who is of course the original peg..." (Amita Malik, 'Sunday', August 28th)
Kapur's film is not the story of one extraordinary woman: it is a manifesto about Indian womanhood." (Alexander Walker, Evening News)
When a woman becomes Womanhood, she ceases to be real.
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