Kartik Aaryan-Kiara Advani's Satyaprem Ki Katha & Netflix's Lust Stories 2 make for a fascinating double release

Roughly five years ago when the first edition of the edgy, erotic Netflix anthology Lust Stories released, it felt like a significant cultural moment. After all only weeks ago, Veere Di Wedding, a raunchy adult comedy that fronted female desire had hit theatres. In retrospect, it feels like a surreal time, when Hindi cinema was prepared to go bravely go where few would have. This week, the second instalment of Lust Stories drops on Netflix, coupled, with a release in the theatres that is indicative of the portmanteaus, Hindi entertainment and conversations about intimacy seem to have settled into. The release of Satyaprem Ki Katha might sound like a battle between love and Netflix’s version of lust but it also has the hint of a model that might soon become the pervasive norm.

The latest collection of Lust Stories features films by directors R Balki, Konkona Sensharma, Sujoy Ghosh and Amit Sharma. Of the four films, practically only two engage with the idea of sex as a physiological manifestation. There are fairly provocative images and sounds on offer and they kind of double down on the idea that maybe it is not longer possible to test the sea of our audience by rowing through it with vagrant sexual expression, healthy or unhealthy, in a theatrical setup. Only last week, Jennifer Lawrence’s No Hard Feelings, dialled the clock back to the age of lusty, silly, no-holds-barred sex comedies of yore and yet, despite the A-list presence, the response has been lukewarm. Maybe the method of our consumption has also begun to dictate taste.

From the looks of it, Kartik Aaryan’s film will try to harp back to the glorious 90s, albeit with better technical know-how, and grander budgets. Marketed as a romantic musical – a blatant attempt at spelling the nostalgia out for you– Aaryan’s film feels like another attempt at revisiting the larger-than-life romance that the box office has repeatedly told us, doesn’t quite work anymore. Karan Johar’s Rocky aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani will test the currents soon as well. Filmmakers are continuously seeking this generation’s DDLJ, which might or might not happen at all. It’s a long shot, that could translate into massive money obviously, but it can also, likely disappear without a whimper. That, however, won’t stop people from trying. And maybe for the sake of a rich filmmaking tradition, they shouldn’t.

Romance, intimacy has quite simply become too complex, to be allowed that limitless expanse to open its arms and run into. Even Hollywood has struggled to produce a decent rom-com in recent times. In fact, with shows like Apple Tv’s Platonic, it might just have given up on the idea all-together. It begs some looking into, this coincidence of two releases that grammatically and idealistically look at love through differing languages. Sex probably isn’t as taboo as it was five years ago, but it possibly can’t be ushered into a theatre in the tray of a foul-mouthed comedy. That kind of film or series has maybe made streaming its permanent home.

The cinemas, it seems, will continue to serve the mainstream ideal of feeding into cultural clichés. The buddy horror comedy will come back. Action films are in vogue, at least the good ones. Other than that nobody knows what will work and won’t. Given the unpredictability, provocation ceases to be the kind of tool it could serve maybe ten, maybe fifteen years ago. The moneyed have access to relatively voyeuristic content on streaming – Netflix has a bunch of films and shows like 365 days and the recently released Obsession – which more than makes up for all the rancour and scandal you’d like to consume as a more intimate journey. Watching No Hard Feelings in the theatre, for example, felt eerie, almost awkward beyond a point. Something has clearly shifted.

People increasingly seem to prefer the privacy of their homes, in effect turning stories about intimacy and other tenuous subjects, into an intimate act itself. Furthermore, it’s probably easier to place such content on streaming, the challenges notwithstanding, than to maybe do another Lipstick Under My Burkha for the theatres. The narrowing of the mainstream feels unfortunate here, but streaming seems to offer that channel of rediscovery. To which effect, rather than challenge each other’s topicality and treatment, this battle for eyeballs across mediums and cinematic language, can and maybe should be celebrated for its co-existence.

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