Kama Sutra - A Tale Of Love
(1996)
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An epic tale of love and desire infused with all the pageantry, passion and vibrant color of 16th century India. Tara, a noble princess, and Maya, a palace servant girl, have been raised together as childhood friends and rivals. While Tara wears fine silks and jewels and learns the etiquette of the Kama Sutra, Maya must be content with Tara's cast-offs. Despite her superior status and privilege, Tara is threatened by Maya's inherent sensuality and grace, often humiliating her publicly in court. On the eve of Tara's wedding to the great Raj Singh, Maya exacts sweet revenge as she slips into the king's bedchamber and seduces him. But when Maya's treachery is discovered, she is banished from the palace in shame. Forced to wander through the kingdom, she is finally befriended by the court sculptor, Jai, who inadvertently units her with Rasa Devi, the famed teacher of the Kama Sutra. Maya now begins a journey in which she will learn the full lesson of this timeless text. |
This is nothing to do with the manual depicting sexual positions. “Kama Sutra” actually translates as “love lessons”, and that's what princess Tara (Sarita Choudhury) and royal servant girl Maya (Indira Varma) learn in director Mira Nair's lavish historical romance. Maya's “sexual treachery” with Tara's betrothed, King Raj Singh (Naveen Andrews), gets her banished from court and puts her on the road to erotic self-awareness in a complex story that mixes the mystical with the psychological. Oddly affecting, beautifully filmed and scored, and with an intense performance from Varma, Nair's emotional epic is a class act.