Mahesh Bhatt discusses the Bhatt brand of erotica

Meena Iyer (BOMBAY TIMES; June 12, 2011) There’s tremendous buzz around Vishesh Films’ Murder 2 starring Emraan Hashmi and Jacqueline Fernandez for obvious reasons. The trade and the public who have now come to expect a staple erotic quotient from the Bhatt brothers (Mukesh and Mahesh) — Jism and Murder being the reference points — know that Murder 2 won’t just push the envelope but tear it.

Mahesh Bhatt, the brain behind these films, admits that Jacqueline is bolder than Jism’s Bipasha Basu and Murder’s Mallika Sherawat (Murder). Says he, “We at Vishesh Films decided to make films with a high quotient of erotica to cater to the new consumer who is living a life radically different from the life I lived in my youth. “Bollywood cinema was slow to realise this but society had moved on. That is why when we made Jism and Murder and Raaz, the audience lapped it up. They had no problems with it. But the purists were outraged.

“For the first time in Indian cinema, Bipasha uttered the words, “the body doesn’t know love, it only knows lust.” Then we had Mallika in Murder who sleeps with another man and returns to her marriage only because her affair isn’t working out. She has an intensely fulfilling sexual extra-marital relationship and feels no guilt. This is the post modern Indian woman.

“The India in which we were groomed, was shackled to certain beliefs. In the cinema made by our More >