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You Say You Want A Revolution…
Australian filmmaker Megan Doneman tracks the life story of India’s most controversial revolutionary in her eye-opening documentary ‘Yes Madam, Sir’.
Yes Madam, Sir is a fascinating documentary on the life of Kiran Bedi, a woman who has both achieved great success and attracted considerable controversy in her homeland of India. Australian documentary-maker Megan Doneman was drawn to the story of this incredible woman, the first female elite police officer in a country that places a high importance on traditional values. The film has come to Australia for a limited run following a successful series of screenings on the international festival circuit and features a certain British Oscar winning actor as its narrator. "Everyone always asks how I got Helen Mirren," Doneman laughs, "and I say, ‘You ring CAA.'"
The documentary itself is a mixture of archive film of Bedi, as well as Doneman's own video footage from a period of six years spent working closely with her subject. Throughout the trials and tribulations of Bedi's police career - facing off against violent mobs, butting heads with the country's bureaucracy and even being handed the seemingly impossible task of reforming the nightmarish Tihar prison - her own natural charisma shines on the cinema screen. "That's one of the reasons I chose her," admits Doneman, "and I think that's half of the battle won for me as a filmmaker. It's not casting so much because it's not a feature film - but it is casting in the sense that your key subject has to be watchable at the end of the day. They're either enjoyable to watch, or they're a car crash to watch, but they have to have something that makes an audience want to watch them on screen."
Having started in film editing, Doneman decided to move into documentary after completing two shorts. Despite coming from a drama background, she imagined it would be a simple matter to shoot footage on her own camera and not have to be as concerned with funding upfront. She happened to see an interview with Kiran Bedi on television while searching for her subject and remembered growing up hearing about this woman from her own mother, who had worked in India. Doneman describes Yes Madam, Sir as a "quintessential David and Goliath" story and it is a testament to the director's ability that this simple initial idea comes through so powerfully in the film.
Doneman admits that she was initially unprepared for the task she had set herself, having only read the video camera manual during the first flight to India. "In some ways I look back on that and think that I was very naïve that I could just rock up on her doorstep and then easily make this film," she confesses ruefully, but what followed was six years of constant filming whenever Doneman had the opportunity to return, taking breaks between editing gigs. She lived in the family home, capturing the incredible peaks and troughs of Bedi's career as a public figure working to change the very fabric of Indian society. It was also a time of intense difficulty for Doneman herself, confronted with situations when her own personal safety was threatened as her very presence as a lone Western female sometimes drew aggression. Her subject's passion and self-confidence was a constant source of inspiration - "I really looked to Kiran in those situations and thought, ‘What would Kiran do?'"
As a filmmaker Doneman sees it as her responsibility to tell stories that resonate on an international stage. "Everyone knows about her in India, but her profile elsewhere is lower, and that's one of the reasons Helen Mirren agreed to do it. She said, ‘Why do I not know about this woman? Everyone needs to know this woman!'" Yes Madam, Sir has yet to be released in India, however it has been screened at a number of Western Indian film festivals and the response from the expatriate audiences has been encouraging. What remains to be seen is how the Indian bureaucracy will react given the film's criticism. "I'm hoping they can look at it with the larger picture in mind. It's also a critique of systems in general and these are the same problems seen all around the world."
Some resistance is to be expected. Kiran Bedi was a public servant who broke the cardinal rule - she spoke out publically about her frustrations and cultivated a relationship with international media that embarrassed her superiors and the establishment. Doneman sums up the dynamic with a line from her film: "She creates waves and enemies in equal numbers."
Finally the time came for Bedi to see how her life had been condensed into ninety minutes, which proved to be a surreal experience - "She said to me right at the end, ‘I forgot I was watching me and just watched this character getting kicked from one end of the room to the other.'"
Yes Madam, Sir will be released in selected cinemas from December 8. For more information about the film or to watch the trailer, go here.
Picture caption: Bedi and Doneman at the Toronto Film Festival.
