Kama Sutra, the movie, takes a practice about sexual connectivity and turns it into sexual crap. A movie that basis its title on a very old historical text and ends up using just the very thin foundation of that text to craft a story that is not worth the celluloid it was printed on.

On the surface, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love would seem to be a very beautiful, exotic and erotic, movie. The costumes are very elaborate, the sunsets are perfectly captured in the camera's eye, and the locations look realistic (it should, the film was shot in India). But, when the characters begin to speak and even when they begin to undress and make passionate orgasmic sounds it becomes apparent that the movie is more about a premise than a purpose.

Although the text of the Kama Sutra is heavily about sex, it's actually quite more than that - and even in relation to sex it's about connection points that when done and felt by two, make both feel like one. But, when movies are made, many times the sex scenes are just about sex. And so, the Kama Sutra which is about more than sex is transformed into a movie just about sex.

Now the movie does try to be something more of course. It throws into the mixture a story about a young women, a peasant, who all her life has been forced to live in the dark shadows of a princess. Although she posses an enormous amount of sexuality she is never considered more than that simply because she does have wealth on her side. One mistake leads to another and she finds herself sent off from the palace where she meets another guy who teaches her the art of the Kama Sutra. And teaches her, and teaches her, and teachers her.

Maya/Indira Varma is the seductress in question who after sleeping with Raj Singh/Naveen Andrews, the king and groom to Tara/Sarita Choudhury, Maya's life long female-rivalry friend finds herself banished from the palace and in the arms of Jai Kumar/Ramon Tikaram a sculptor who loves her for her body and for his art. Soon though, Jai feels that her presence is destroying his art and Maya ends up finding Rasa Devi/Rekha who schools her in the ancient art of the Kama Sutra.

Maya is an excellent student, so much in fact, that by using her new found art she finds her way back into the palace that once banished her. There she uses the art of the Kama Sutra not only for those where the love is genuine between both - but as a trap to ensnare those who want what she posses but cannot have, because of an earlier rejection.

Sounds too simple? It is, really. The story takes up no more than a mere 30 minutes - even then drawn out as thin as angel hair pasta. The meat of the movie really relies on just the sex - especially once the Kama Sutra is taught. There each nipple is given adequate screen time to shine in the golden light and each backward motion of the head is shown in slow-mo to impose a greater sense of ecstasy. As a movie the Kama Sutra really is all about the sex - sad, but true.

Director Mira Nair could have done so much more with the text of her movie and the text of the Kama Sutra - but fails because of her desire to heighten the movie more than what it really is. If this was just a movie about a character that learned the Kama Sutra and used it effectively - then no fault would be on Nair's head. But instead she focuses her movie on that text, names the movie the same as the text, and creates a thought that the movie is going to be about the Kama Sutra when really it's just a name to get the masses to see the movie.

Of course there are the stories that help the film - that India dispatched governmental employees to oversee the production. There are stories that the movie was made under a false name and story - and that the actors rehearsed fake scenes completely unrelated to the heart of the movie in case of a moral raid by Indian officials. There are stories that Nair had to plead in front of the Indian government to allow her movie to be shown in that country. But all of those pleas were really in vain, because Nair may have been pushing a few buttons but all she ended up with was the basement floor.

Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love is nothing more than an exotic Showgirls. I know of a few college friends - myself could be included in that list - who after spending the night before playing a drinking game based on Showgirls, took their dates or just went to see how much sex they could catch in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. The desire wasn't to see a movie - the desire was to see the soft-core porn made up and blown up on the big screen.

Overall Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love is just a movie with lots of sex that tries to hide itself under the pretence of a story about one woman's plight to prove that she is more than just sex. But endlessly fails because the woman's plight isn't at the heart of the film - the sex is.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS