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Touching Tale of a Walking Time Bomb
The New York Post, January 14, 2000
by Jonathan Foreman

Visually gorgeous despite its low budget, "The Terrorist" is a haunting film about a lovely teen girl turned into a "thinking bomb" by the guerrillas who raised her in the jungle.

It's one of a number of recent serious movies ("Earth," "Bandit Queen") from India that breaks away from the sexist, super-patriotic conventions of Bombay "masala" musicals.

It's also sufficiently compelling to appeal to a mainstream audience.

Although the conflict the film depicts could be any of India's brutal colonial-style wars against ethnic uprisings, Santosh Sivan's tale of a girl who starts opening up to life while on a suicide mission is clearly inspired by the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a Tamil suicide bomber.

And the more you know of that horrific incident -- the bomber was a young girl wearing plastic explosive around her waist -- the more powerful the film is.

Malli (Ayesha Dharkar) is the daughter of a slain nationalist poet and has been living in the jungle with the guerrillas since the age of 4. The film opens with her executing a "traitor," and shows her taking part in combat against uniformed troops and killing one soldier in cold blood.

Along with several other girls she is then offered a chance at martyrdom. The organization wants a suicide bomber to assassinate a VIP.

With the help of a small boy she goes downriver, avoiding army patrols before crossing what look like the straits between Sri Lanka and India. She stays with an elderly but talkative farmer and his comatose wife while preparing for her murder/suicide mission.

All during her journey and her stay with the farmer she has flashbacks to a night she spent with a wounded guerrilla she fished out of a river and who was later kicked to death by soldiers. Those memories, combined with exposure to older and younger generations living a normal life, begin to undermine her revolutionary morale as the morning of her attack draws nearer.

The film makes no attempt -- nor is one necessary -- to explore the rights and wrongs of the underlying political situation.

There isn't much dialogue, but unfortunately some of it is absurdly crude ("this VIP is blocking our movement," Malli is told by her commander) and the mostly non-professional cast is unable to make it sound any more believable.

It's the first movie directed by cinematographer Santosh Sivan, and there are too many shots of the star washing her hair, too many unnecessary close-ups and some dubbed-in heavy breathing at tense moments that becomes annoying.

Still, Sivan does a fine job of conveying the sheer monstrousness of child soldiering in the Third World, while keeping you guessing as to whether Malli will actually carry out her terrible mission.