Audiences lap up love, and they savour lust, and everyone knows it. Lust Stories in 2018, Ajeeb Dastans in 2022, Modern Love in 2022, and Lust Stories 2 as of this week –– Netflix and its adjacent platforms are compressing the contours of life into anthology shows; disjointed episodes bound together by a single, often loosely-defined theme.
As Lust Stories 2 emerges on to the scene, Netflix is better for it; acutely aware that anthologies sell. Much like the first, each episode of the second installment has been directed by revered Indian filmmakers: R Balki, Konkona Sen-Sharma, Sujoy Ghosh and Amit Ravidernath Sharma. Noticeably, Sen-Sharma is the only woman director, just as Zoya Akhtar was in Lust Stories.
The conversation surrounding both Lust Stories 2 and its predecessor was driven by its portrayals of desire, sexuality and the grey spaces that exist between lust and love. Although, the easy approbation being dished out by makers and viewers alike for discussing ‘taboo’ topics like sex may be premature.
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The OTT break, is it?
OTT, seen as the harbinger of this audaciousness in India, is pitted favourably against the silver screen. Though this isn’t completely true. “The big screen had many representations, much more before than now, through a plethora of songs that express the desires of women. Lust, longing, flirtation, playfulness,” said Paromita Vohra, filmmaker, writer and founder of Agents of Ishq, a multi-media project about sex, love and desire.
Then there is the overemphasis that OTT brings to the screen. According to Vohra, “There is a childishness to thinking that nudity and swear words alone indicate progress. It’s not a bad thing but doesn’t automatically indicate a big shift in mindset.” Also, what we often end up seeing in portrayals of desire, she believes, is “a politically-correct representation of desire.”
Yet, what has also caught public attention and subsequently gained approval from elite circles is the form in which they were presented. There are obvious merits: the vision and style of filmmakers and auteurs who are otherwise remarkably different coalesce; anthologies typically defy genres ensuring there is something for everyone. And perhaps most fundamentally, the age of anthology in India has been backed by the industry’s biggest names and OTT platforms –– namely Netflix and Amazon Prime. Ray, Modern Love Mumbai, Modern Love Chennai, Bed Stories, Navarasa, among others are what have been released in the last couple of years.
Anthology series multiply it all, and in less time –– effectively consisting of a bunch of short films wrapped in the same thread, regardless of how differently they are shaped.
In 1961, Satyajit Ray made Three Girls, which delved into 3 different Tagore short stories. 40 years later, Ram Gopal Verma made Darna Mana Hai, a horror anthology film.
Yet, Bombay Talkies, made noise for its newness, possibly because it brought together four directors at the top of their game, who then reunited for the original Lust Stories. Bombay Talkies received a lukewarm response, but they carried on nonetheless and brought out Lust Stories. While critics were ambivalent, full of praise for a couple of episodes and dismissive of others, the show was a through and through crowd pleaser. High on success, they went on to make Ghost Stories. A mess masquerading as a Netflix show.
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Inconsistency in thread
Lust Stories 2 is an ideal example of disparate entities wound together by the same thread, as was Ajeeb Dastans, another anthology show. Konkana Sen-Sharma’s previous anthology-adventure was Geeli Puchis, a segment of Ajeeb Dastans. The premise of Ajeeb Dastans was far vaguer than Lust Stories, which at least has lust, multifarious as it is, at its core. Ajeeb Dastans on the other hand, took on a far more daunting task, looking at the fallibility of human relations; attempting to excavate the transactional, identity-driven ways in which humans approach their relationships. It takes on the world.
The thread used to tie Lust Stories 2 is finer. Which also means it is barely holding the show together. Of course, each episode of an anthology is meant to be complete and in of itself, and is supposed to be viewed in isolation. But Konkana Sen-Sharma’s offering, The Mirror belongs to an entirely different realm. There is a slowness to it, a diligence –– a commitment to detail that evades the rest of the series. She has made sure her actors get under the skin of the characters they embody, consequently ensuring her audience does too.
There is voyeurism, sex, and the recognition of class boundaries. All three govern our lives, but remain egregious to some. However, the lens through which they are viewed is empathy and an acquiescence of what it is to be human.
Meanwhile, in the other 3, the seeming lack of deliberation gone into the characters is a gaping hole. Having one episode that is so wholly superior makes one question the value of a form that is growing in cadence –– would the director have benefited from releasing this as a standalone? Is its brilliance being dulled? The answer, perhaps, is yes: it deserves to be in better company, with episodes that match its emotional depth and don’t meander at the surface.
“We often conflate talking about sexual violence with talking about sex,” said Vohra. The plot of the final part of Lust Stories 2, Amit Sharma’s Tilchatta, is centered around a prostitute and her alcoholic, abusive husband. There are multiple scenes that depict sexual violence.
If one would like to look at Lust Stories 2 in totality, a definitive possibility –– what is it to be viewed through? Tilchatta, the startling normalcy of desire in Sen-Sharma’s The Mirror, Sujoy Ghosh’s fever-dream sequence that has overtones of violence and the objectification of women, or the pithy, overstated sermon on sex by R Balki? There is so much dialogue in Balki’s episode, even as it doesn’t say much –– entirely contrary to Sen-Sharma.
Ajeeb Dastans’ Geeli Puchis met with the same fate, enervated by the inconsistency of the other 3 episodes.
Each episode of Mani Ratnam’s Navarasa deals with a different ‘rasa’ (emotion), Ray is a compilation of a select group of Satyajit Ray films.
There are numerous approaches but the unifying factor that feels smoothest is the cityscape, as done in Modern Love.
Modern Love Mumbai released last year on Prime, and is a take on Modern Love –– a visualisation of the popular New York Times column. It was followed by Modern Love Chennai. Cities are heady spaces, filled with contradictions. An anthology seems like an appropriate form to encompass a city –– the chaos of the form, the sheer binding of themes and characters and people that have nothing to do with one another, mirrors city life.
Cities of today are by and large concrete and hence they can be packaged. Love, lust and romance seldom are. They are wild and unwieldy and often can’t be held together. Maybe that’s where Indian anthologies falter –– the subjects they grab onto are too vast. The West does that too, but take a look at Black Mirror. There exists an acknowledgment of the magnitude. The human-tech relationship can’t be packaged neatly. And so, Black Mirror stopped trying.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)