The Indian filmmaker discusses her movies, her characters, and her own history.
Kama Sutra (1996)
Won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography.
The actual Kama Sutra is not what people think it is—a pop-up book of sexual positions. It’s about how to engage all your senses in living your life. And I really wanted to make Kama Sutra “Kama Sutra-ically,” so we studied the ancient text. Her hairstyle was based on designs we saw in the erotic temples in Khajuraho—sometimes it’s phallic, sometimes it’s monumental. I wanted to show how utterly modern the ancient sense of design was. I also like this image because of the way the shape of the hair echoes the pillar.
Sarita Choudhury gave a fiery performance as Meena in Mississippi Masala; for this film she brought maturity and pathos to the role of the queen. In this image, she has just seen her childhood rival—her old servant— being taken as the preferred concubine of her husband. It’s a moment of great humiliation. Her mother-in-law says, “She’s just a concubine, but you are a queen. You have to adjust.” “Adjust” is the word that every Indian woman is fed in large doses.
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