WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

taosaur I came across this film quite randomly and expected something pretty intolerable, but with bewbs. Instead, I got beautiful cinematography and arresting visual content behind a very candid study of the difficulties of navigating human desire. Even in a culture with clear conventions and few inhibitions regarding the acts of love, relationships advance by trial-and-error, defying the participants' intents and expectations, elevating some while trampling others underfoot.The film at once delivers the exotic with its costumes, sets and dancing, and tells a timeless and easily recognizable human tale. Also, some very beautiful people take off their clothes =D

long-ford I found this film preposterous and not in a good way. A clichéd plot involving kings and queens in ancient India is a feeble excuse to engage in a soft core melodrama. The lead Indira Verma, although stunningly beautiful, is a very bad actress and mistakes posturing for acting. Vetern Hindi film actress Rekha is essentially wasted in a throw-away role as an elderly courtesan who teaches nubile nymphets the art of 'pleasang their man'. Yes, it is as yucky as it sounds, and unfortunately not treated with the campiness it deserves. Worth avoiding.Overall 3/10

gelman@attglobal.net POSSIBLE SPOILERS: Much more has been heard from Mira Nair since "Kama Sutra: A Love Story," but comparatively little from Indira Varma, who at the time the movie was made, may have been the most beautiful woman alive. Both clothed and naked, she is so gorgeous as to defy description. Nair and her co-author have devised a more-than-serviceable plot about the rivalry between the well-born Tara (Sirita Chouldhury) and her playmate and servant Maya (Varma). When Tara is betrothed to Raj Singh (Naveen Andrews), the jealous Maya seduces him prior to the wedding. After leaving her home to take advanced instruction in the Kama Sutra, Maya falls in love with Kumar (Ramon Tikarum), a sculptor, who rebuffs her after a consuming love affair because she so fills his imagination that he finds himself unable to create. Her heart broken by her lover's rejection, Maya becomes Raj Singh's courtesan and steels his love from Tara, the queen. Kumar finds he cannot live without Maya and finds her in the harem, where he is discovered and condemned to a spectacular and particularly brutal death. The dissolute Raj Singh is then overwhelmed by enemy forces led on behalf of Persia by Tara's hunchbacked brother, who had once sought Maya for his wife, and Maya wanders off into the Indian mists as the film ends. Indira Varma -- half English and half Indian by birth -- has subsequently enjoyed a rather minor career, mostly in television. But when this film was made, there was no one in Hollywood, Bollywood or any other center in the film making industry who was a more striking beauty.

jannings True, this movie does not match Mira Nair's earlier movies such as Mississippi Masala and Salaam Bombay! It is also true that much of the movie's pace is sodden and the plot is fairly predictable. And yes, unfortunate feminist tendencies creep in from time to time. But the presence alone of the incomparable Indira Varma is worth the price of admission—or the price of renting the DVD.What makes this movie valuable is its sumptuousness, as many critics noted when it premiered. The sexuality is intense; the locations in northern India are stunning; the costumes are well wrought and the music is convincing. Westerners are used in some ways to seeing movies about India, especially India of the British Raj. But this movie is set in the 16th century, well before Western influences had set in. But what makes the movie so fascinating is the "Westernized" vision that emanates from the four lead actors, all of whom were either born in or grew up in England. Indira Varma was born, I think, in Kent; Ramon Tikaram, whose voice is as resonant as any movie actor's heard in the last thirty years, grew up in Germany and later moved with his family to England. Naveen Andrews was born in London, as was Sarita Choudury. These four actors share nearly all the movie's focus, and they are thoroughly westernized. They, and directoress Nair, all got away with filming this movie under the noses of the Indian authorities. As a result, there is a delightful seditious quality to the work. But the most delightful of all is the aforementioned Indira Varma, whose stunning beauty and sexual intensity almost leap off the screen. At times she is playful, at others deeply distressed, at other times she seeks vengeance. Repeatedly she embraces her destiny with what seems to be her entire being: rarely has an actress in recent films been able so to concentrate on and immerse herself in the dangers, the hope, the expectations, and the benevolence that surround her. What a woman! And what an artist. Like all great artists, she transcends the limits of culture, critical distinctions, and artificial categorization.