MISSISSIPPI MASALA introduced me to both Mira Nair and (not just me, but the larger world, to) Sarita Choudhury, and I thought it a wonderful film, and Choudhury both very talented and remarkably beautiful. Thus, when hearing (first via NPR interviews) that Nair was tackling a drama that involved the KAMA SUTRA and had signed Choudhury up for the project, I couldn't imagine what could be bad about it.
Sadly, I found out. First, to have Choudhury in your cast and to make a rather less attractive woman the focus of a sensual and sexually explicit photoplay seems self-defeating, particularly when she's also, to judge from this performance, not much of an actor. Then to make the sexual scenes so devoid of chemistry or even much prurient interest, in part through the utter oiliness, both literally and figuratively, of the characters (I hadn't seen this much unction among screen lovers since the similarly unappealing scenes in the loose, awful Asimov adaptation NIGHTFALL) is to give the audience very little reason to continue being so...this would've been only the fourth film I'd ever walked out on, had my companions not wanted to stick it through to the very end. (NIGHTFALL had been one of the other three, though it was my companion, driven to the edge of physical illness by the film, whom I acquiesced to then, without much regret.) Reasonably well-shot, but a major disappointment in every other way.
Sadly, I found out. First, to have Choudhury in your cast and to make a rather less attractive woman the focus of a sensual and sexually explicit photoplay seems self-defeating, particularly when she's also, to judge from this performance, not much of an actor. Then to make the sexual scenes so devoid of chemistry or even much prurient interest, in part through the utter oiliness, both literally and figuratively, of the characters (I hadn't seen this much unction among screen lovers since the similarly unappealing scenes in the loose, awful Asimov adaptation NIGHTFALL) is to give the audience very little reason to continue being so...this would've been only the fourth film I'd ever walked out on, had my companions not wanted to stick it through to the very end. (NIGHTFALL had been one of the other three, though it was my companion, driven to the edge of physical illness by the film, whom I acquiesced to then, without much regret.) Reasonably well-shot, but a major disappointment in every other way.