THERE is little common ground between Bandit Queen and English, August. While one—stark, searing, sledgehammer-wielding—delves disconcertingly deep into the heart of darkness in rural Hindustan, the other, armed with a wickedly funny script and a quiver full of hard-edged one-liners, lays bare the chaos, confusion and corruption that prevails in small-town India. Even in terms of style and mood, the two films could well have come from two different planets: Shekhar Kapur's unblinking study of caste-gender hatred has no room for redemption; in Dev Benegal's maiden feature, which uses English as its principal language, whacky, irreverent humour is an escape chute.