The Cloud Door offers a glimpse into the classical erotic literature of India where desires seem to burn you and the resulting smoke consumes everything. The ever present parrot offers expert advice on sensuality, travels through the air, looms like a cloud and brings in with him lovers of his own manifestation, desires and passions. The freedom might seem like an intrusion or an expression of joy or a mere act to instill Eros in the minds of the religious. The clouds where the bird travels in not his end but a door to the invisible and even what we see, the symbolism, is misleading from the wretched Brahmin to the laughing fish. Mani Kaul has always fascinated me with his visuals; the geometry of his frames, symmetry in shots, the color palette, the way he depicts spaces as something not confined in the structures which exist around it and the lyrical feel in which words flow beside the images and you are left gasping while you try to absorb all details presented.
Review of The Cloud Door
