Santosh Sivan’s 1998 film The Terrorist would likely be unknown to Western audiences were it not for the personal crusade of John Malkovich to ensure its availability and distribution. Malkovich first encountered the film while serving on the selection jury of the Cairo Film Festival in 1998 and was so impressed by it that he became its champion in America. The Terrorist is more a coming-of-age film than a war film or action film, though it deals with what I have previously labeled “coming-of-age traumatically.” It is about a nineteen year-old girl who is thrust into circumstances that belie her age. Her coming-of-age is distorted, by usual standards, by having to cope with challenges that should be well beyond her years.

Historical Context: Santosh Sivan belongs to the New Wave of Indian cinema that draws on the lyrical cinematographic tradition of the great Indian director Satyajit Ray but “updating” it with more highly polished and modern production techniques and by applying the resultant style to themes more social and political than what Ray tackled. The Terrorist was loosely inspired by circumstances surrounding the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, but this film is studiously apolitical.

The Story: A nineteen year-old, female soldier named Malli is part of an unspecified resistance movement somewhere in India. She is quite obviously committed to the cause. Her brother previously died for the same cause. During the early part of the film, she kills repeatedly and without hesitation or remorse. She even butchers one enemy soldier with a machete. She apparently carries deep wounds of hatred from something painful in her background and that hate has been nurtured and channeled by the leaders of her cause. The opening scene shows a supposed traitor to the cause tied to a tree, tortured, and then executed at point blank range by a masked member of the organization. His blood splatters on the mask of the executioner. When the mask is removed, we see the hardened but beautiful face of young Malli.

The terrorist group has been given a high profile mission to assassinate a political leader. It requires a female assassin. Malli and several of her fellow female soldiers interview for the prestigious opportunity, not withstanding it being a suicide mission. Malli has impressed her superiors and is selected from the candidates. The leader announces her selection and exalts her as a “thinking bomb.” The plan calls for her to wait in line to greet the politician, place a garland around the target’s neck, and then to set off plastic explosives bound around her waist to blow up herself, the target, and anyone else unlucky enough to be close by.

Malli must travel along an underground network of agents working with her terrorist group. She is guided over one leg of the journey by a boy of about thirteen named Lotus (Vishwas). Viewers learn that he is the only survivor of an attack on his village that killed his entire family. Like Malli, he is hardened beyond his years, yet traumatized. He alternates between acting the part of a brave little soldier and lapsing into a frightened little child who suffers from nightmares. He leads her down the center of a stream to avoid landmines, just as he has guided many others in the past. He tells Malli that all the others he had escorted were later killed. They depart having become friends of a sort, but as she looks back, she sees the boy shot to death.

In a flashback, we learn that Malli once encountered a young fellow revolutionary who was seriously wounded. She had cradled him in the forest, comforting him. Neither of these young combatants had previously ever been as close before with someone of the opposite sex. It is a touching scene of tender romance.

When Malli arrives at the farmhouse where she will stay until the signal comes for her to carry out the assassination, she is presented as a cousin of one of the other terrorists. The farmer, Vasu (Parmeshwaran), has no idea about the business of these folks. He is very religious and philosophical and takes a kind of parental interest in Malli. He has a well-developed appreciation for life and teaches Malli little bits of refinement and understanding. The farmer’s wife is in a coma and has been so for the past seven years. She lies in her room with her eyes open staring blankly outward. The farmer still sets a place for her at dinner, out of respect and hope. The wife is in the room next to where Malli sleeps and rehearses the assassination plan. Malli begins to become conflicted about her assignment, all the more so when she discovers that she is pregnant. The tension gradually builds from this point as viewers wait to discover whether Malli will go through with the assassination or not.

Themes: The Terrorist is an exceptionally intriguing exploration of the mentality that goes into being a suicide bomber. Malli is presented with all the complexity of her commitment to her cause, her experiences, the variety of motivations that drive her, and, ultimately, the doubts that well up inside her. The movie becomes a race between the maturing and deepening of her perspective and her zealous commitment to martyrdom for her cause. Her attitude begins to change because her eyes are opening to the values of life. She notices as well that the comatose wife of the farmer stares directly into her own room and it gives her the feeling of being watched. I think that for Malli, the comatose woman represents her own sleeping conscience. As it awakens a bit, her commitment to murdering for her cause is shaken. Then, her doubts are further deepened when she discovers that she is pregnant and that she will not only be committing suicide but also killing her unborn child. We feel these contrary impulses as she does, but the outcome remains uncertain. Will she or won’t she push the button that ignites the bomb?

The original title for this film for its release in India was Malli, which is a good deal more neutral title than The Terrorist. These days, the term “terrorist” produces a pretty strong negative reaction for most Americans, since we are more likely to view ourselves as victims of terrorism than perpetrators. Those with power rely on domination, suppression, and exploitation while those out of power resort to terrorism. Each party in a conflict uses what is available to it. There was a time when terrorism was the weapon of choice for Americans. The Boston Tea Party and the turning away of the Tea Ship Polly in Philadelphia were classic terrorist actions. Some Americans will find it distressing that Sivan presents Malli in a manner that doesn’t comport with our assumptions about the kind of people that become terrorists. It is more comforting to imagine that all terrorists are simply madmen (or women) with fanatical adherence to some unreasonable cause. It spares us having to recognize whatever merit exists in each particular cause or that they are real people with a full range of feelings and aspirations who are committed to what they perceive as righting a wrong. To view this film as propaganda, however, is quite a stretch, considering that Malli’s cause is not even identified. For what is it propaganda?

Warfare is ugly no matter how it is conducted. The use of children and suicide bombers as agents for conducting war is disgusting but no more so than the utilization of impersonal “smart bombs” that kill hundreds or thousands at no personal risk to those that launch the bomb. War is never antiseptic on the receiving end. The very same kinds of acts will be interpreted as either heroic or fanatic depending on how the person making the judgment happens to feel about the merits of the associated cause. There will always be people prepared to sacrifice their lives for a cause. When are such sacrifices of life heroic martyrdom and when merely madness? My personal view is that violence is justifiable only when the cause in question is unequivocally just, has a life-and-death level of importance, and when the violence can be effectively directed specifically at those responsible for the problem. Killing people who are merely “like” (in some general way) those responsible for the problem is never morally justified.

Sivan makes interesting use in The Terrorist of water as a recurrent symbol, representing the flow of life as well as purity. We see it in the downpour in rainforest, dripping off the faces of the young terrorists, in a shower scene, and when Malli is being led by Lotus down the center of a stream to her destiny.

Production Values: It is amazing that this beautiful film was shot in just seventeen days time, using almost entirely amateur actors, with a miniscule budget. Somehow, Sivan nevertheless achieved a lush product highlighted by sublime performances.

The script was co-written by Santosh Sivan, Ravi Deshpande and Vijay Deveshwar. One of the ingenious decisions was to give neither name nor substance to “the cause” to which Malli is dedicated. They also do not name the target. Consequently, the viewer has no way of knowing whether the cause is one for which they might have sympathy or not. It is this device that allows the film to be personal rather than political. The viewer’s sympathy is undiluted because our sympathy rests wholly on Malli as an individual, not either with or against her cause. Moreover, we’re even uncertain whether in rooting for her, we hope that she will successfully complete her mission or, conversely, cop out on the mission and choose life over death. Our uncertainty parallels her own. We must struggle with her because we are given no external basis for deciding the rightness or wrongness of her cause. Will she journey to death or journey to some kind of enlightenment?

Another exquisite strength of the script is how well it contrasts the innocence of Malli and her fellow girls or young women with their capacity for cold-blooded killing. In the opening segment, we witness Malli killing a supposed traitor; then, immediately, the film cuts to girls brushing out their hair by a river.

Santosh Sivan was an award-winning cinematographer before turning his hand to directing. The Terrorist was his directorial debut, so it is hardly surprising that it bears the imprint of his strength as a man behind the camera. The images he provides us with are forceful and gorgeous. Malli’s face is emphasized with fabulous close-ups to an extent that reminds one a bit of Dreyer’s filming of Falconetti as his tormented heroine in Passion of Joan of Arc. All else is background as our attention is riveted on this young woman and her behavior and emotions. Her natural beauty is highlighted by expressionist lighting.

Sivan also has an eye for the beauty of nature, giving us haunting images of faces dripping water in the rain forest. He exhibits an almost pantheistic capacity to find beauty everywhere. Using multiple lens and deep focus techniques, he creates a stark contrast between the beauty of the cinematography and the horror of the subject matter. In that respect, the film reminds me of another I recently reviewed, the Russian film Come and See.

The soundtrack made use of an interesting technique: from time to time we hear Malli breathing heavily or sighing, as though we were inside her head. It augments our identification with her and the emotional turmoil that she is experiencing. The musical score provided by Sonu Sisupal Rajamani and the natural sounds, together with the images and faces, provide most of the emotional communication in this film, since the dialogue is somewhat sparse. Occasionally the musical score is overwrought.

Ayesha Dharkar was the only profession in the cast. All the rest were nonprofessionals in the Neorealist tradition. Dharkar, a young British actress, had few lines, but carries the film with her wide and expressive eyes, natural dark-haired beauty, and intensely powerful physical performance.

Bottom-Line: This is a film that will deepen your insight into the mindset of terrorists without necessarily challenging your political beliefs, since it leaves the cause unidentified. The film is tense and involving and will keep you actively engrossed, and wondering about the outcome until the very end. The Terrorist is in the language of Tamil with English subtitles and has a running time of 95 minutes. Although it is not rated, it would probably earn an “R” for violence. My personal recommendation would be to restrict viewing to adults and stable adolescents of at least sixteen. This is a fine film, both entertaining and educational, and well worth a viewing.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from India:

Aparajito
Charulata
Earth
Jalsaghar
Kadosh
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
Mother India
Pather Panchali
Salaam Bombay!
The World of Apu

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older