By Subhash K Jha
BOLLYWOOD: For those who have seen and loved Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s new opus Goliyon Ki Raaslila Ram Leela, what hits you right in your guts is the sheer unabashed celebration of sexuality between Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone. The film is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s epic love story Romeo and Juliet.
Put simply, the couple can’t keep their hands off each other. They ooze a sexual chemistry. Their words and body language convey a sexual tension that none of Bhansali’s earlier films have dared to venture into.
Smouldering Deepika in the film
Whether it was Salman Khan’s genteel courtship of the ethereal Manisha Koirala in Khamoshi: The Musical, Ajay Devgn’s hand-off silent smouldering adoration of Aishwarya Rai in Hum…Dil De Chuke Sanam or the bitterly-antagonistic friction between Shahrukh and Aishwarya in Devdas, lovers in Bhansali’s films always spoke the language of distanced adoration.
No more so.
One doesn’t know if Ranveer and Deepika are a real-life couple. But by jove, if they’re faking it they’re better actors than we thought!!
Explaining the sudden eruption of sexual frisson in Goliyon Ki Raaslila Ram Leela, Bhansali says, “First of all, I didn’t make an intentional decision to have my protagonists talk and behave in a certain way. It just happened.”
Shakespeare to Sex-peers: Ranveer, Deepika in a romantic scene in Ram Leela
The filmmaker basking in the rave reviews and great collections says, “I feel physicality is an extremely important part of the process of falling in love. I haven’t shown lust between the two. It’s just that huge attraction and the ensuing curiosity about one another’s body, mind and soul between two people when they fall in love.”
So are love scenes going to be this unabashed in all his films from now on?
ExplainsBhansali, “I don’t think I’ve changed my stance regarding people in love. My lovers in this film are just more unabashed flirtatious and demonstrative about their feelings. Having said that, I must say this film has liberated me, aided me to throw off the shackles of inhibition.”
