gavin6942
Set in 16th century India, this movie depicts the story of two girls who were raised together, though they came from different social classes. Tara (Sarita Choudhury) is an upper-caste princess while Maya (Indira Varma) is her beautiful servant. The two girls are best friends, but an undercurrent of jealousy and resentment is caused by Tara's haughtiness, symbolized by the fact that Maya is given Tara's hand-me-down clothes and never anything new to wear.During filming in India, the name of the project was not revealed to government officials who would have denied the petition to film in India had it been called "Kama Sutra." Instead, it was called "Maya & Tara." Since government officials made many periodic visits to the set to ensure proper Indian film etiquette, the cast had to improvise fake scenes which avoided the nudity and sexuality central to the story. Upon completion, authorities screened the film and it was subsequently banned in India because of the erotic scenes that contained heterosexual as well as homosexual elements.What really caught my attention about this film was Naveen Andrews. At the time he made this film, he was unknown, and remained largely unknown after the film. But then he was a main character in "Lost". I wonder how many people went back to see his past work, as it would completely change the way they might see him. It is also interesting that he has been cast in roles as both an Indian and an Iraqi. (Andrews happens to be a British-born Indian.)
postbox-vijay
Expected a lot more from the maker of Salaam Bombay. Bought a DVD version of the movie in Canada with a sequel from Mira Nair herself.She babbled erotic scenes and melodramatic sequences are a must to the story. But where is the storyline here? At best she has exploited the flesh of then beautiful women in the world Indra Verma.In Mira Nair rates herself as the purveyor of women liberation and wanna highlight the plight of a servant girl in the medieval India, whats the point in those surrogate scenes? Still cannot figure out why this movie was labeled Kamasutra.A billion dollar question even the director cannot answer
Conscienta
Ignore the terrible score, we can thank disgruntled pornography lovers for that. Perhaps the title is misleading, but I find this a positive thing. If only a small percentage of people who tune in expecting seedy scenes remain glued to the set once they get involved in the story and great cast of characters, the film has accomplished a considerable amount.It is a beautiful, erotic film - such vivid representation. The sets look completely authentic and the acting is spot on. Maia (Maya) plays her lead role perfectly and naturally.The film left me in deep thought for a considerable amount of time after it ended, it provokes strong, active emotions.
Theo Robertson
I do confess that I have read the Kama Sutra and there's an awful lot of misconceptions about it . It is NOT some hot porn manual that will get your juices flowing , it's a very thick book about the art of love . If you've bought a copy simply to use as masturbation fuel then you've certainly wasted your money . Likewise if you bought the book to wave around during some moral crusade with a rather dubious agenda The film is very similar to the book . Many people who have stated their opinion have obviously watched the movie either expecting to be shocked or to be brought to orgasmic ecstasy but that's their problem because like the book with the same name this film while being somewhat erotic is also rather dull . It's not an adaptation per se just a rather unconnected and tenuous example of a book and movie sharing the same name . The only reason it's called KAMA SUTRA is down to the fact that it's taught to a group of courtesans , the rest of the plot involves something of a love triangle . It's also a movie that's not well made with a visual look of something that appears to have been shot on very poor stock film I will praise it on one aspect - The casting . For this type of movie to come close to any type of success the casting of the lead female must be right and Indira Varma as Maya simply steals the film . He is strikingly beautiful but he also oozes a type of pure innocence . It's very easy to see why Raj Singh has fallen in love with her . Singh is played by Naveen Andrews who everyone in the world will now know via a very successful American show but you'll never be reminded of Sayid Jarrah while watching this because Andrews is very convincing . I do feel slight sympathy for Sarita Choudhrey as the other pivotal female role of Tara because her part feels rather underwritten and understandably she doesn't have the same type of breathtaking beauty as Varma unfortunately This could have been a very poor film and to be honest it's not a great one either , but some clever casting and fine acting make it worth watching at least once
AD
