Brian Gardner reviews Mira Nair's film Kama Sutra IT'S A PITY Kama Sutra is not actually a film version of the famous and ancient sex manual of the same name. That would be more interesting.
In a fictional sixteenth century India, Sarita Choudhury's Tara, a princess, is to marry the king of a neighbouring state. However on her wedding night the king cannot stop himself from being enticed by the allure of Tara's chum, the servant girl Maya (Indira Varma).
When Maya's sin is discovered she is exiled from the court and falls in with the sculptor Jai Kumar (Ramon Tikaram -- Ferdie in This Life). After a long flirtation they finally get down to it while covering each other in lentils.
The brooding Jai lives only for his art. "We can't be together .. don't fall in love with me", he pleads. Abandoned by her lover Maya resolves to receive instruction in the art of being a courtesan.
Stumbling across Jai and some of his creations the king recognises one of them as bearing an uncanny resemblance to Maya. As a reward for finding Maya for the king Jai is allowed to wrestle with him.
I'm not sure why this is, but it does provide an excuse for Andrews and Tikaram to strip to their loincloths and get down to some manly sport.
So we have a love triangle -Tara loves the king who loves Maya who loves Jai who only loves himself. Maya becomes one of the King's courtesans but will not give him her heart.
Meanwhile the King blissfully ignores the fact that his brother-. in-law has teamed up with the Shah and threatens to invade his kingdom.
The film looks good. It's beautifully costumed and photographed and leaving aside smutty references to lentils, the sex scenes are not ridiculous and have about them a raw sensuality. But those are the only virtues.
The acting is wooden and the Chin up, old chap. Ramon Tikaram (Ferdie from BBC2's "This Life') avoiding any compromising positions characters have no real depth. There are some really awful lines -the sort that unintentionally make cinema audiences chuckle - such as when Maya says to her condemned lover:
«You have to be very brave my love. They take you tomorrow and I will be with you always. Always!"
Stylistically there are more than a few problems with the narrative's continuity. Over half way through the film, it suddenly dawns on us that years have passed. A Maya who doesn't look any older tries to apologise to Tara when she says: "I was young. I had no idea that what I did would change your life forever."
The plot meanders all over the place and as with Tara's suicide attempt, there is no attempt to build up tension before dramatic events. text and no exploration of how differences of class or caste might affect attitudes to sexuality.
The king's immersion in sensual pleasures reminded me of another film in which an Indian ruler ignores the coming of an invading army, in this case British -Ismail Merchant's and James Ivory's The Chess Players.
That film, however, is clearly located within the early days of British imperialism. In Kama Sutra, until they enter at the end carrying their banners emblazoned with the crescent moon, we really have very little idea who these invaders might be.
Were it not for the dialogue being in English we could be in Bollywood - and a lot of Bollywood is much better than this. There were several times after some of the hammiest lines when I thought/hoped the actors were about to break out into song.
How the director of the powerful Salaam Bombay came to make this piece of vacuous waddle I'm really not sure. Much more interesting than the film itself is her court battle with the Indian censors who have banned the piece. In a recent Guardian interview she stated:
"Sexuality in Indian cinema is always cloaked in rape and violence, the women as whores or virgins, and never the twain shall meet".
There is certainly a conscious attempt to move away from this and perhaps one of the reasons for the film's failure is that Nair is not at this stage bold enough to place such a transference within a real historical or social context.
I REVIEWS IN THE NINETIES, millions of women and men have taken part in mobilisations against the evils of capitalism and the bureaucratic dictatorships. This reflects the fact that humanity faces widening dangers. Ecological, military, social and economic devastation faces millions of people. In a situation where the inability of the social democratic and communist parties to provide socialist solutions is becoming clearer, the task of creating new leaderships remains ahead. this struggle. We are the British supporters of the world-wide marxist organisation, the Fourth International. We stand for the revolutionary transformation of society and a pluralist, socialist democracy world wide. human beings from every form of exploitation, oppression, alienation and violence. Socialism must be under the control of ordinary people, democratic, pluralist, multi-party, feminist, ecologist, anti-militarist and internationalist. It must abolish wage slavery and national oppression. ploited and oppressed. The working class and its allies must uncompromisingly fight against capitalism and for a clear programme of action in order to gradually acquire the experience and consciousness needed to defeat capitalism at the decisive moment of crisis. people to fight their particular forms of oppression make an essential contribution to the struggle for a different society. They are organised around the principle "None so fit to break the chains as those who wear them". struggles. Furthermore we fight for a strategic alliance between workers and these organisations which respects their legitimate autonomy. each country and a revolutionary International we aim to guide and encompass the global interests of the workers and oppressed. By building a united struggle against exploitation and oppression we aim to ensure the survival of the human race. Many more people recognise the barbaric nature of capitalism. Socialist Outlook is written and sold by socialists committed to The overall goal which we pursue is the empancipation of all The working class is the backbone of unity among all the exThe movements of women, lesbians and gay men and black The whole working class needs to fully commit itself to these By simultaenously building revolutionary organisations in Charlie van Gelderen reviews 'Caliban's Freedom - The Early Political Thought of C.L.R. James', by Anthony Bogues (Pluto Press £13.99) C.L.R. James rightfully takes his place in the pantheon of revolutionary thinkers of the 20th Century, with Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg and are not considered by any of us as an item of hostility or an obstacle to friendly collaboration in the future."
Later in his life James was to develop further his differences with Trotsky and to question the validity of the Leninist Party. But he could not have written his magnum opus, The Black Jacobins, the story of the Haitian rebellion led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, without a profound knowledge and understanding of Trotsky's theory of Socialist loo Leon Trotsky. His 'History of the Russian Revolution' drew James to Marxism, while his theory of Permanent Revolution helped inspire The Black Jacobins.
capitalist state, with the bureaucracy performing the same tasks for State Capitalism as the American governmental bureaucracy carried out for Ford, General Motors, and so on. To Trotsky's call for a political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy he coun tered the demand for a social Even before he went to the United States, James was actively involved in the anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia. He