It has just been released in Ecuadorian cinemas the warrior queen (2019) which portrays a story about empowering women as it is based on a true account of Rani Lakshmi Bai (1835-1858), the historical queen of Jhansi who fiercely led her army against the British India Company Orientals in the infamous riot of 1857.
Indian filmmaker, dancer, choreographer, educator and arts promoter Swati Bhise is responsible for bringing the profile of a legendary queen to the big screen. Breaking the domestic boundaries around legend, Bhise’s film turns Lakshmi Bai into a global feminist icon and tells its story through an authentic and non-exotic narrative. “I wanted a bigger scope, so I decided to make this movie while I was working on the production of The man who knew infinity (with Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons in 2014). I would produce and direct this movie if I couldn’t find anyone else and since I couldn’t find anyone else to do it, I decided to make it myself,” the filmmaker says in a YouTube video.
Bhise makes her directorial debut with this film and as a dancer she is famous for her dance pieces that deal with strong female characters from her country’s mythology. “I grew up in India and studied in the United States; being between two cultures for the last 36 years, I realized that constantly he had to show what a great country India was. I kept talking about how our culture wasn’t just about curry and the usual stereotypes; that we were not all doctors and lawyers. People’s idea of Indian culture was dictated by Bollywood, which is a big industry, but not the beginning and end of our diverse culture. In fact, I grew up with everything but Bollywood, so I found myself sharing music and books that I thought my American friends should listen to and read. I realized that the change I was trying to make was happening on a very miniscule scale.”
The heroic queen has been dubbed by historians as India’s ‘Joan of Arc’. She “she wanted to make a film about Rani Lakshmi Bai, mainly so that the world would witness her story. I hope that everyone realizes that we must make an effort and take our stories outside their domestic limits. The West isn’t really dying to hear any of our stories, there’s a lot of resistance. They’ll say Rani Lakshmi Bai is a myth, they’ll say she didn’t exist… or they’ll say a movie about her story isn’t really up to Hollywood because you don’t have a 100 million budget. Even some Indians will resist and question the need to bring their story to Hollywood. I just tried to make a movie about an amazing Indian woman and make everyone understand that she deserves to be a role model for all women; regardless of whether they are Indian or not”, he referred to the site firstpost.com.
The queen of Jhansi lost her life very young when she faced the mighty army commanded by Queen Victoria. Lakshmi Bai refused to cede Jhansi to the British. Shortly after the start of the riot in 1857, which broke out in Meerut, she was proclaimed regent of Jhansi, ruling on behalf of her junior heir. Joining the uprising against the colonizers, she quickly organized her troops and took care of the rebels in the Bundelkhand region. The mutineers in the neighboring areas headed towards Jhansi to offer her support. “I chose to make a film about her because in these times of great gender disparity in all fields, hers is the perfect story to share; she is young, but so brave and courageous. There is a lot of men against women everywhere, men who feel attacked every time a woman raises her voice. So I thought this movie would tell women and men everywhere that there was a woman who didn’t seek the approval of men, who did what she wanted and forged her own path, created her own destiny and left a rich legacy. So it was with great admiration that I decided to make the film about this female icon that we are so proud of.”
Two years after Queen Victoria married Albert in 1840, another young woman was crowned queen in a distant part of the British Empire: the teenage Manikarnika, who was renamed Lakshmi Bai after her marriage to Raja Gangadhar, the ruler of a small independent kingdom in northern India called Jhansi. However, the fate of these two queens could not have been more different.
Unlike Victoria, who gave birth to nine children, Rani Lakshmibai had only one child, a boy named whom she and her husband adopted in 1853, two years after the untimely death of her own baby. “I have tried to make the East India Company look like a corporate company, because the Company then behaved exactly as many corporations behave now. Hopefully that will help people contextualize his role in Indian history. Nor did he want to do the usual thing of portraying all British officers as terrible people. There were some who were empathic, just as many Indians were traitors. All the dialogues have been based on first-hand evidence found in travelogues written by people who visited Jhansi during the Rani rule. Someone who talks like that and walks into court with two daggers hanging from her waist is an extremely feisty woman.”, Bhise told various outlets in 2020.
Actress Devika Bhise, who plays the title role, is also an intrinsic part of the film’s production, as she co-wrote the script with her mother and is an executive producer.
Rupert Everett plays Sir Hugh Rose, a British field marshal and one of the ablest commanders during the 1857 mutiny in India.
Source: Eluniverso
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