
2 minute read
IN THE NAME OF LUST
from 2018-07 Melbourne
by Indian Link
Lust Stories
STARRING Radhika Apte, Akash Thosar, Bhumi Pednekar, Neil Bhoopalam, Manisha Koirala
DIRECTOR Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee and Karan Johar HHHHH
Vibrators and self-pleasuring seem to have seeped into the cinematic consciousness of India. Barely had Swara Bhaskar finished her business in Veere Di Wedding, now a pretty Kiara Advani playing a sexually repressed wife shocks her in-laws by getting her own pleasure without the help of a man, the man of the house be damned. This orgasmic omnibus opens with the weakest story of the lot. Anurag Kashyap’s tale ploughs through the sexual escapades of one of the most unlikeable heroines I’ve seen in recent times. Radhika Apte plays the sexually active Kalindi, a college lecturer with the hots for her virgin student Akash Thosar who remains virgin no more after she finishes with him.
Frankly, Kalinda leaves the audience feeling soiled and used too. She is brash, brassy, over-sexed and filled with intellectual pretensions that border on delusional megalomania. The part is perfect for Apte who now owns the space allotted to ‘sexually savvy’ and empowered women in our films.
Kashyap probably wanted us to hate Kalinda. He succeeds.
Lamentably, the storytelling also appears unhinged and self-indulgent.
In Zoya Akhtar’s story, Bhumi Pedneker blossoms into an actress of substance. Playing a house-help who is helping her unmarried single employer (Neil Bhoopalan) with his bucket-‘lust’, Bhumi hardly speaks. There is a kind of unvarnished elegance in Zoya’s delineation of domesticity. And in the way she makes the tea and serves her master, Pedneker shows us the complex dynamics of the household. If God lies in the details, this segment is a temple of titillation. It is a heartbreaking piece and probably Zoya’s gentlest work to date.
Dibakar Banerjee does an Ingmar Bergman-Basu Bhattacharya portraitfrom-a-fractured-marriage in the third
(Daisy Shah) and his adopted son Sikander (Salman Khan).
The twins have a grouse against their father. They feel that he is neglecting them as he is fond of Sikander. So they plot along with Yash (Bobby Deol), Sikander’s loyal bodyguard, to show him down. The plot advances relentlessly with twists and turns, and despite familiar elements it takes a complicated, longwinded path for a clichéd finale.
With dialogues like, “Our business is our business, none of your business” and “They don’t make men like you anymore”, the writing is light,
Salman Khan and Bobby Deol seem world-weary. Jacqueline Fernandez as Jessica - a con-woman-cum-undercover government agent is natural. So are Daisy Shah and Saqib. Freddy Daruwalla as Rana, one of Shamsher’s adversaries, has his moments of on-screen glory. The film is astutely mounted with high production values. The action sequences are wellchoreographed and slickly edited. While some of the scenes with live action drama get your adrenaline charged, especially when Jessica and Sanjana have a free-fight in the dance-club, there are others that resemble an action-packed video game. The camera work by Ayananka Bose is undoubtedly excellent.
The songs are an aberration to the narrative. All of them are slow and uninspiring: with their fatigued beat they are the weakest point of the film.
Troy Ribeiro
story where lust is not a predominant impulse, desolation is. And Manisha Koirala is perfect for the part of a wife who has found comfort in her husband’s best friend’s arms. Somehow the hurt never comes across strongly.
Lastly, Karan Johar, who enjoys the orgasmic beat more than the others. His story is an unabashed ode to the Big O, though a little broad and tactless in the way it makes the selfpleasuring vibrator seem like a tool of sexual liberation. Kiara is likable as the repressed wife, while Vicky Kaushal as her self-righteous ‘sanskaari’ husband is outstanding in making his annoying character endearing. But much of Karan’s pontification on a woman’s desires and man’s character is laboured in its bumper-sticker wisdom.

Full props to the movie for opening that door into the Indian middle-class sexual consciousness where there lurks a lust for self-fulfilment, seldom explored, scarcely realised. This omnibus deserves an ovation.
Subhash K. Jha