Bandit Queen

Much more than a docudrama, Kapur's uncompromising film spares the viewer very little. Yet it is the opposite of exploitative.

The director possesses the rare instinct for knowing just when to pull the camera away from scenes of abuse, providing them with considerable power without ever being exploitative.

Bandit Queen may not be a strictly accurate rendering of Devi's life, but it treats its story responsibly to give a disturbing and exciting portrayal of an extraordinary woman.

This is an eye-filling and often stirring movie.

The numerous, unflinchingly filmed scenes of public and gang rape make this a visceral, if gruelling, experience, especially when juxtaposed with sprawling, beautifully photographed vistas of the Indian deserts and mountain ranges.

An astonishing, overpowering piece of rabble-rousing, consciousness-raising, epic-scale filmmaking.

Bandit Queen is, firstly, a lucid narrative about injustice, as exciting as a Peckinpah western and as sharply observant of rural folkways as a film of Satyajit Ray.

One of the finest films made in India that pushes the envelope of cinematic excellence.

The film does not really show how she rose to icon status, but offers a passionate condemnation of the oppression of women and peasants under India's caste system.

A controversial film due to its provocative portrait of the legendary Indian female warrior; even its subject later repudiated it.