As with Shakun Batra, director Kiran Rao made her first short film, in her early 20s, at film school (Jamia, in Delhi) that, she recalls, was about a 31-year-old’s birthday gone south, because of a husband, who doesn’t care. Her short film debut in Netflix’s Lust Stories 3 — as with most shorts — would be hard to describe, without a spoiler, though.
Suffice it to state that it’s a play on Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, but rather serious. Shakun’s, on the other hand, with Ali Fazal, Radhikka Madan, felt to me as a running narrative on the addictive nature of ‘break-up sex’. Shakun disagrees, but adds, that could make for a fine elevator pitch!
Three of the four directors on the threequel of the Emmy-nominated Netflix franchise, competently produced by Ashi Dua, are men — while the anthology, looking at relationships through the prism of sex alone, for the most part, seems entirely from the women’s PoV.
Take Vikramaditya Motwane’s opening comedy (starring Radhika Apte, Konkona Sensharma) on couple-swap. The best bit that actor Vijay Varma gets in it is that his character experiences trauma from whisky + ghazal, because they remind him of his alcoholic dad. Hilarious!
The filmmakers, on the other roster, direct features, otherwise. Vishal Bhardwaj, who’s filmed several shorts in the past, says he finds the medium hugely liberating: “The commitment involved isn’t as long. And you have the opportunity to say something crisply, with design and craft.”
Which is precisely what Vishal does, transporting his plot to 1980s Hyderabad — about an anonymous, Urdu writer of smut (Aditi Rao Hydari), whose fantasies, chiefly imagining her husband (Siddharth) soar over her everyday married life.
What did you think of the said short films? My favourite was Vishal’s, while enough people have told me they loved Vikramaditya’s or Kiran’s more. An online survey on my social media handle rates Shakun’s, by far, the best. The comparisons are immaterial. What matters is, if the anthology works as a whole. It sure does.
Lust legacy
In ‘Lust Stories’ (2018), filmmakers Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, and Karan Johar came together to tell four distinct stories exploring desire and relationships. In ‘Lust Stories 2’ (2023), R Balki, Konkona Sensharma, Sujoy Ghosh, and Amit Ravindernath Sharma gave their takes on desire
Quick bytes with the directors...
Personally, how do you make a distinction between love and lust?
Kiran Rao: When you see someone, you’re attracted to, is that lust? The curiosity about a person you want to be with, or know more about, does that start from love, or something chemical? Lust can be the starting point. Could it be the ending point too?
Absolutely. Also, what makes a person sensually attractive, often, is the conversation, their humour. You [could] find a person sexy, because of their smile; not necessarily for how they look with their shirt off. It’s hard to distinguish. But I do think love comes after knowing a person, including their flaws.
Everyone must watch (Belgian psychotherapist) Esther Perel, when she talks about how to keep the spark in a marriage alive. One of the things missing, once you’ve been married for long, is you know the person too well.
Mystery’s gone. There’s no chase. Why is it that people are interested in extramarital affairs? Because there’s something unknown. There’s potential of knowing someone. Therefore, to keep lust alive in a marriage is always work.
Your film gets funnier, once you introduce Korean drama into the story, with the imaginary characters Jin and Min — did you dive deep into the popular TV genre to understand it better?
Vikramaditya Motwane: I didn’t do a deep-dive. My research was, I asked my ADs (assistant directors), do you follow K-dramas? Yes. So as long as they are K-drama fans, I’m gonna trust them to surprise me, and let
me be.
Netflix did get me in touch with people in Korea. We had a couple of conversations, where I said this is what we are trying to do, and if it’s kosher. They kinda told me, where it would land in the Korean landscape, and what my title [sequence] should be. The actors are [actually] from Korea. One of them is in Bombay right now. The other is a professional actor living in Delhi!
Of all the lust stories, why are you looking at marriage, when you’ve never been married yourself, or is that the reason?
Shakun Batra: I was [actually] going through a relationship, when we weren’t able to communicate, and sex was filling up the gap. I started reading about how bodies tend to communicate. They’re very primitive.
The body needs closure too. Without giving away spoilers, these two people [in the film, Ali, Radhikka] haven’t addressed some of the grief part of their marriage. The sex then is still trying to keep them together, right? It happens with most relationships. Your heart and mind may say this relationship’s over. But bodies still, sometimes, tend to continue. And why’s that? For me, that is very exciting.
[Let alone Lust Stories] you’ve done Zubaan Pe Laga… Namak Ishq Ka (from Omkara) — the world’s lustiest song, ever; was that the intention?
Vishal Bhardwaj: Gulzar Saab is a master. Even Beedi Jalai Le, if you read minutely, is about adultery. When he says, Itni Sardi Hai Kisi Ka Lihaaf Lele, Ja Padosi Ke Chulhe Se Aag Lele — he means the neighbour’s wife. That was the theme for Omkara, so lusty; and that’s how involved he gets in the script. Namak Ishq Ka was originally written as the antara of Beedi Jalai Le.
I drifted from that metre, while composing the tune. But I usually have 50-60 chhilke (shells), or rejected lines of Gulzar Saab, lying around, which I saw in my notebook, when making the new song. I picked up this line, where he writes, Zubaan Pe Lage Namak Ishq Ka Toh Duniya Savaadi Lage… which became Balam Se Maanga Maanga Re, Namak Ishq Ka… and then the final version.
0 Comments