Untamed and Untouchable

Though it stands in wise contrast to Shekhar Kapur’s daft 1994 actioner Bandit Queen, which bought lock, stock and barrel into the Robin Hood deification of rape victim turned man-hating gangsterette Phoolan Devi, Sandstorm is as slickly made as any Hollywood melodrama (Jagmohan, who wrote, edited and directed the picture, divides his time between India and Los Angeles). The movie is encumbered by an awkward, not to say unnecessary, framing device in which the story is told by a gratuitously sexy Anglo-Indian journalist (Laila Ruass) who’s researching the case for a book she will make a best-seller. Also, Jagmohan indulges himself in a jarring detour into titillating speculation about why the men’s semen doesn’t match that found on Sanwari’s clothes. Yet none of this detracts from the film’s moving depiction of the multiple humiliations heaped on women who brave the odds in a none-too-rapidly modernizing society or from the hope that surges through the final scene, in which Sanwari, still clothed in the vibrant crimson and ocher that dominate the movie’s gorgeous palette, continues her work as an activist, while a little girl dances joyfully to the chants of the radicalized women around her.

LE DIVORCE | Directed by JAMES IVORY | Written by RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA and IVORY | Based on the novel by DIANE JOHNSON Produced by ISMAIL MERCHANT and MICHAEL SCHIFFER | Released by Fox Searchlight Pictures | At selected theaters

SANDSTORM | Written and directed by JAGMOHAN | Produced by JAG MHUNDRA and GAURANG DOSHI | Released by RS Entertainment | At the Music Hall