The Kama Sutra, as everyone knows, is an ancient Indian guide to love and having sex in positions that would be uncomfortable to anyone but teenage gymnasts. Kama Sutra: A Tale Of Love contains plenty of talk about love and a few memorable scenes of enthusiastic lovemaking, but mostly it's just a tedious and strangely dispassionate, strangely standard costume drama. Indira Varma, a stunning beauty even if the script doesn't require her to act too often, plays a servant girl who becomes the lover of a gifted artist and a courtesan to the king. This situation creates all kinds of problems, including an estrangement from her childhood friend, the queen. Respected director Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala) probably set out to make a story with universal appeal—everyone loves a love story, after all—that just happened to feature an all-Indian cast. An admirable goal, but she ends up with a very pretty, very flat film. Wisdom is dispensed in lines such as, "Shame and honor are two sides of the same coin," that should have even the most die-hard fans of self-help books cringing. Outside of being a feast for the eyes, it's difficult to discern just what the point of the whole sprawling saga is supposed to be.
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