In Netflix India’s Lust Stories, the four directors don’t focus on sex (as some may infer from the title) as much as they do on reclaiming bharatiya naari’s agency. A promiscuous college teacher, a domestic help in a relationship with her employer, an upper middle-class woman suffering from trust issues in her marriage, and a bahu discovering orgasm within the wafer-thin walls of a suburban two BHK, the four protagonists are as different as they could be. All four films end with the protagonists asserting themselves as flesh-and-blood human beings, instead of simply striving to make a point.
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Anurag Kashyap
In what seems like Kashyap going back to his good old ways of haphazard film-making (contrary to a relatively staid Mukkabaaz), the director tries to dissect the mind of a woman looking to explore herself, sexually. In a long-distance marriage with a man 12 years elder to her, Radhika Apte’s Kalindi is opening up to newer experiences which leads her to the doorstep of a college student Tejas (Sairat’s Akash Thosar). The film has an undercurrent of manic spontaneity, where Kalindi constantly keeps breaking the fourth wall to incoherently mutter like someone who feeds on Charles Bukowski quotes on the Internet, and hides behind lofty philosophy for her unreasonable (and frankly dickish) actions.
The film feels ‘current’ in the way it touches upon the #MeToo movement and the consent debate, which gives Lust Stories its funniest scene. Kashyap revels in these clumsy repetition scenes where the Marathi mulga Tejas is forced to pronounce ‘consensual’, reminiscent of that brilliant scene from Ugly that begins with an FIR but somehow ends with a cop taking a selfie. But like the improv Kashyap of the old, where the film mines humour from the most unfamiliar places, it also overstays its welcome by a bit. And yet, it’s hard to begrudge Kashyap a funny film.
Zoya Akhtar
Arguably the best film among the four, this short film starring Bhumi Pednekar and Neil Bhoopalam gleams with dignity. Akhtar has brought up Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay more than once during interviews, and you see that trademark Mira Nair nuance shining a light on India’s class system. Opening with a passionate lovemaking scene between a man (Bhoopalam) and his domestic help (Pednekar), Akhtar soon sentences her protagonist to the shadows for the rest of the film. The nuance lies in how the man completely looks through her and lifts his feet, as she sweeps the floor beneath him. How he’s gazing into his laptop, as she serves him poha with a some lime squeezed on top. It’s like he only *sees* her during their business in bed. Pednekar knowing the price of this impossible relationship, goes about her job with professionalism.
Once the man’s parents arrive, there’s conversation of a rishta and the ‘lover’ is ‘put in her place’ by being handed some leftover mithai and snacks. You expect to see a burst of anger and betrayal, and instead we hear Pednekar’s silence. She goes through the whole range of emotions and then makes peace with her heartbreak by biting into a barfi. Written by Island City director Ruchika Oberoi, the film benefits from the intentionally sparse dialogue. And the main conflict of the characters is voiced through an awkward exit, minus eye contact. Just like life.
Dibakar Banerjee
This is the most ‘grown up’ short film within Lust Stories. Handling the delicate subject of infidelity, Banerjee bottles up all the action inside a beach house. Unlike Karan Johar who used up every borough of New York City with half of the city’s population in colour-coordinated costume and half a dozen of the biggest actors in Bollywood (at that time) in KANK; Banerjee has a brilliant cast, appropriately wrinkled by time. Sanjay Kapoor is an interesting choice to play someone who is both vulnerable like a child and a creepy, self-centered husband, all in the span of a few moments. Jaideep Ahlawat gets the best line in the film when Koirala points to their messy extra-marital relationship and says ‘it’s so complex…’ to which he responds with ‘it’s life.’ Koirala is the standout actor amongst the four segments, bringing such immense poise to her ‘once-upon-a-time stunner’ character.
Banerjee’s film is the most dense of the four shorts, almost like he developed too much backstory on each of his characters. And even though his film is bereft of a satisfying resolution, that’s essentially the point the director is trying to make. Adultery is essentially about the futility of keeping secrets, and you’ve just got to make the best of what you have.
Karan Johar
Borrowing from its director’s persona, this segment involving a middle class bahu reclaiming her right for bedroom pleasure, is the loudest among the four (no pun intended). It’s almost become a mandatory trope that Johar uses self-references/deprecation as armour for otherwise contrived set-ups. Librarians are dressed in lace blouses with a hint of cleavage showing, probably Johar’s reminder to the audience that this is a film about ‘liberated women battling the male gaze’.
The wedding portions + suhaag raat scenes may feel like a condom commercial, but Johar has also kept his trademark wit to help you get through it. Like say when a school principal ‘corrects’ a phrase in Lolita changing the word ‘loins’ to ‘lions’. Johar also nails the short count to five, the time it takes Vicky Kaushal’s character to orgasm leaving his wife high and dry. Kaushal is unmistakably brilliant as the semi-literate, PJ-cracking husband. A character that could have otherwise been a a stereotypical entitled man in the marriage, remains accessible and empathetic thanks to Kaushal’s goofy charm.
In an anthology that is much more reserved and restrained, Karan Johar’s short feels like it belongs to a different universe. And even while it makes an important point, Johar simply doesn’t have the ammunition to make his idea of middle-class feel authentic.
As a companion piece to 2013’s Bombay Talkies, Lust Stories is definitely on more solid ground. While only Dibakar Banerjee’s film stood on its feet in the former, this one has at least three compelling films that need to be peeled through repeated viewings. Johar once again sticks out as the sore thumb, but maybe it’s his own journey towards finding a braver and more clinical director within. Some day, perhaps.
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