The Infamous Kamasutra...

... or how to live a life as a typical Indian in medieval times.

The movie, which shares names with an ancient Indian book that's basically all about how to have good sex, was released in 1996 and made by director Mira Nair (probably best known for her later - and much better - film, Monsoon Wedding) When released, though, Kamasutra created quite a lot of interest, primarily because humans around the world are basically obsessed with sex and are keen to see anything "intellectual" that will satisfy their prurient urges. Suffice to say, I never quite got around to watching it, primarily because it was low on my list of priorities, but more importantly, because people I know and whose opinion I respect had seen it and told me it was utter and complete bilge.

Cue many years later on a quiet weekday evening in a rainy London, and the movie was being screened on Film 4. While I cannot bother to waste any more of my life on the movie to write a review, I thought a good summary of what I thought of it would be summarised by a collection of tweets I posted during the movie. These are reproduced below. I should apologise for a lack of screen shots, but frankly, I can't even be bothered to waste more of my time on this than I already have. So if you want to see pics, google "Kamasutra". Just try not to do that from a work computer.

Content warning: I swear. A lot. And talk about sex. A lot. But then that's why you're reading a post with the word, "Kamasutra" in the heading, aren't you?

Pervert.

Oh look. Kamasutra's coming up on TV. BRING ON THE NEO ORIENTALIST BILGE. *does pejorative Indian head wiggle*

WARNING: there will be some Kamasutra tweets following. These relate to the movie, not to my usual agony aunt & sex advice column<

How to be more Indian: make sure Shubha Mudgal sings alaaps as you go about your life. Makes you more authentic

Can someone please ask Shubha Mudgal to sing an alaap please? I'm sipping wine on a couch & need to be more authentically Indian

Why the FUCK are they doing Bharatnatyam in Rajasthan? South Indian dance forms in the home of Kathak?

Life in medieval India must have required a LOT of starch. How else to keep all those linens crisp & fresh?

"That's her. There she is. My lotus woman." BECAUSE INDIANS JUST SAY SHIT LIKE THAT

Little known fact: Indian palaces came equipped with fans at strategic locations. To ensure our well-starched fabrics draped aesthetically against our bodies

Ok. I've just realised why a gold kardhani (waistband) can be so sexy

What kind of princess has her wedding farewell with her face fully showing? She's not swaddled enough!

"It's our destiny." Ah, that classically Hindu Indian fatalism. Resolves so many dilemmas in our authentically Indian lives

Every Rajput family needs a slightly deranged uncle who can utter menacing warnings from the ramparts

Our Rajput family has not one, but several, deranged uncles. They add a lot of colour to our ramparts

"Put this beneath you at the time of the pain." Because you're GONNA GET SOME LOVIN' TONIGHT

Ah yes. Sex between unmarried Indians is great. Sex within Indian marriages must be TERRIBLE

*Camera cuts to Khajuraho* *And then Varanasi* BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER

"I'm a sculptor. I want to sculpt you." AND OH LOOK WE'RE NOW IN SOUTH INDIA

That's it. I'm growing my hair. I seem to be inadequate as an Indian upper caste male without long flowing locks

"This position, we call the Twining of the Creeper." I.e. the meeting of the white wine & the red wine drinkers

To make love as an Indian sculptor, you need: (1) long hair (2) an artistic temperament (3) a hibiscus flower

Ah yes. What would life be without the irate upper caste men on horse back? Because all evil arrives on horse back

This movie is reminding me of a distinct lack of incense, elephants, mysticism and diaphanous silks in my clearly un-Indian life

BRING ME MORE DIAPHANOUS SILKS. I NEED MORE DIAPHANOUS SILKS

"Sorry Mrs. Nair. We're out of diaphanous. Will gold brocade silks do? The finest that Mubarakpur has to offer"

I think I'm getting silk rage

*Insert breathy wise comment from older courtesan* *add Rekha charm & mystique* *try to save movie* *fail to do so*

Ok I'm sorry to say this, but Maya has UGLY nipples. And the sculptor has an ugly ass

Sex scene! Cue female feet, daubed in alta, with silver anklets, writhing in pleasure

Oh WOW. This is a first. A sex scene involving wheat. THRESH THAT GRAIN, FARMER! HARDER! HARDER!!

"Jai. I made some co-co-nut rice for you." BECAUSE COCONUT RICE IS SO FRICKING TYPICAL OF MADHYA PRADESH

"Sometimes, things don't make sense immediately." NO FUCKING WAY, REKHA

Note to self: make sure Shubha Mudgal NEVER sings in a brothel in one of your own movies

"Jupiter, the sign of good fortune, is in your house of love." Bring on the Indian astrological superstition

"Of course, before I forget, YOU CANNOT BE IN A MOVIE ABOUT MEDIEVAL INDIA WITHOUT A STUPID HAIRDO

"What kind of fuckwit uses "The glory of God is within you" as a pickup line? Except for a Catholic missionary?

Men in loincloths. Homoerotic medieval India moment alert. AND ONE OF THEM HAS A PEARL NECKLACE

And now they have fucking ODISSI dancers? IN KHAJURAHO?

This movie will give me a heart attack. I'm going to need a bier. WITH FUCKING MANIPURI DANCERS & Bengali Baul singers.

"I wish we were free like when we were children." Trite Dialogue Alert

*Contemplates committing seppuku by medieval Rajput blade on display in living room*

Litle known fact: medieval Indian couples competed sexually by measuring the thickness & length of their hair

If all Indians have as much sex as the ones in this movie, our population numbers suddenly make COMPLETE sense

This movie has too many shots of Naveen Andrews' nipples

More homoerotic wrestling. This time fuelled by opium. Drug-fucked male skin contact. Might as well be a gay club

This movie is making me lose my will to live. I GUESS IT'S JUST MY DESTINY AS A FATALISTIC INDIAN

Hang on. My bath water doesn't have rose petals in it. Am I being un-Indian in my bathing?

AHA. Yet another RIDICULOUS hairdo. I thought we were losing the plot here

Must ask Mother to send me a sitar player & a tabla player. I'll keep them locked in cages in my flat to provide a soundtrack to my life

Some ritualised hair cutting. Hmmm

Ah yes. The ritualised crushing of the prisoner by elephant. Followed by another Shubha Mudgal alaap

And for the execution, the courtesan pulls out a Bengali puja sari. Because that makes fucking sense

And it's over? What, no rebirth? No slums of Bombay? WHERE THE FUCK IS THE HAPPY DANCE? Oh wait. Wrong movie

Lost the will to live. Off to bed. Good night

Let the Right One in - the Live Blog!

Kicking off: Okay then. First time for a live-blog on The Buddha Smiled. I keep meaning to try this, and should have really done this before, but hey, better late than never. Starting out with Swedish vampire horror movie, “Låt den rätte komma in” (or "Let the Right One In", which was the title under which it was released in English markets) may sound unorthodox, especially since I tend to focus on Bollywood on this site, but hey – why do things by the book? You can read a short bio on the movie here, but otherwise, let’s just say that its a 2008 Swedish film adaptation of a vampire horror novel of the same name, written by John Ajvide Lindqvist. So – here goes nothing!

Menu & Set up: This has a pretty creepy sounding soundtrack. Loving the close up of falling snowflakes though....time to hit Play!

01:20 min: I want a name with strange Scandinavian characters in it too. Maybe I should rename this blog, ”The Büddhå Smiled".

06:53 min: Okay, so within five minutes we’ve established the Oskar, the lead character, is a bit of a school misfit, who reads creepy books that allow him to decipher forensic evidence and also gets bullied around a little in school. New neighbours in the apartment / housing complex, but is it just me who would find it odd that people moving into a new place would choose to board up windows? It’s like, HELLO! Your new neighbours aren’t the Joneses, they’re bloodsucking ghouls who are afraid of the sunlight. Also – they moved in after dark, and live in Sweden, a country clearly reknowned for long sunlit hours. Duh.

15:37 min: ”A person who kills children is certainly capable of taking the subway two stations. Or walking a mile.” This is clearly why child slayers are threatening - they’re able to use public transport.

16:39 min: Okay, this kid is officially weird. His parents are divorced, which may explain some of it, or it could be a lack of sunlight, but seriously, most pre-teens collect stamps or seashells, not newspaper clippings relating to murders, massacres, genocides, violent crime and gang wars. Also, why can he not get a normal haircut?

27:59 min: Obviously its a good idea to be murdering people in areas with heavy snowfall. A good flurry covers your tracks, and you can use your sled to move the body through the forests.

28:22 min: Gaah – I hate vampires! Not only are they blessed with eerie good looks, immortal life and an incredible sense of personal style (have you ever seen a badly dressed vampire?) but apparently they’re also blessed with great analytical thinking capability. Atleast, this vampire does – she solves Oskar’s Rubik’s cube and leaves it out in the courtyard for him.

28:45 min: On second thoughts, this vampire girl child is probably the first one I’ve met with absolutely no sense of personal style. And what is with those hideous jumpers? Maybe its because she’s pre-teen? Nah – if you’ve been alive for that long, you’ve had enough time to develop a fashion sense. Must introduce her to Kirsten Dunst from Interview with a Vampire to help this one realise that just because you're one of the living dead and a child, there's no reason you can't dress well.

36:24 min: Vampire girl tells bullied boy who’s been recently flagellated by schoolmates to hit back. Perfect. This is why we hate vampires – they screw up with the natural order of society. Imagine if everyone started hitting back. What would happen to the world? And more importantly, who would the poor schoolyard bullies pick on?!

41:43 min: Someone needs to tell Oskar’s dad that wear high-waisted faded denim jeans with a grey Christmas sweater TUCKED IN is never going to be a good look. No wonder Oskar’s mom divorced him, if that’s his idea of casual wear. Which is a shame, really, because he's pretty good-looking. But there's no accounting for taste, now, is there?

44:04 min: Ugly middle-aged man standing at gym window watching teenaged Swedish boys in gym kit playing basketball, and nobody’s calling child services and the police? What, so perving on teenage boys is legal and normal in Sweden?

46:50 min: Vampire child’s servant (?) defaces himself with acid to avoid detection and being traced back to Eli (said vampire child) And people complain that good help is hard to find even today. Bah, humbug.

53:20 min: So vampire child’s help is dead, she’s now climbing into bed with Oskar and its all getting a little weird. Are Swedes allowed to show pre-teen loving?!

56:41 min: And I thought I had relationship issues. Imagine dating a vampire.

1hr, 05:43 min: Note to self; the next time I’m dating a vampire, remind me not to suggest mixing blood as a sign of pre-teen fealty. The situation is unlikely to end well.

1hr, 20:45 min: Do all Swedish moms wear Ikea print gowns to bed?

1hr, 21:52 min: Vampires self-combust in sunlight. Important to remember the next time I’m dating one.

1hr, 24:21 min: True love is forcing yourself into houses you’re not invited into as a vampire, so that you can bleed from your eyes and ears. That pop! sound when your eardrums go is also really nice. Unrelatedly, why does the sight of a bleeding vampire give me cravings for aloo ka paraatha and bhare mirch ka achaar?

1 hr, 26:28 min: This movie’s obviously set in the late 70’s. Nobody would dare own a TV set quite that hideous today. And there I was thinking that the random decor was just how they rolled in Sweden (all that Ikea influence, you know). So I might as well also give up my fantasies of moving to Sweden, which this movie had led me to believe was the kind of place where I could wear brown mid-calf boots and not be beaten up in the streets for looking too “alternative” (read gay). Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Oskar’s hairstyle as well, then. On second thoughts, scratch that. Even the 70's can't be an excuse for a bad hairstyle. That one will only go so far, you know.

1hr, 32:28 min: You’ve got to love a script in which the normal human, out to seek revenge on the vampire that’s killed his friend and girlfriend, is somehow the evil one, while the evil bloodsucking ghoul that self-combusts when exposed to sunlight (a bit like leech +salt = goo) is the good one. Must recommend movie to scriptwriters of Interview with a Vampire” for lessons on how to make the vampire the popular one.

1hr, 40:09 min: Oskar is being totally set up at the gym by the guys who used to bully him, and the one he whacked across the ear with a metal stick. DUDE! Suspense is not good. Will Eli, vampire girl child, be back to save him? Only if it’s a Bollywood movie; these damn Europeans don’t know how to do feel-good. (groan)

1hr, 43:37 min: I told you these damn Europeans couldn’t do feel-good. So Eli, i.e. vampire girl child, does show up and save the day, but it involves decapitation and dismemberment. Not cool, especially when random body parts end up in public swimming pools. Now you see why I have a phobia of public pools? Who knows what’s been in there?

1hr, 45:20 min: Awww. True love is carting your vampire girl child girlfriend around Swedish national railways in a cardboard box. Chho chhweet!

And that’s it? Hmmm.... not a bad movie – definitely kept me engaged, but I can’t say it was mind-blowing. I did enjoy the live blogging experience though, so I can’t really complain. The grim landscapes of Blackeberg, Sweden, with snow-covered walkways and icy pine and fir trees does seem appropriate for bloodsucking ghouls that abhor the sunlight, but I’m not a fan. Especially since everyone and every review has been going on and on about what a brilliant movie this was. That may be a slight exaggeration, methinks.