The Disruptive Mirror: Reclaiming Female Desire in "The Mirror"

In the male-gazed world of Indian cinema, female desire has long been a radical disruption -  acknowledged yet swiftly punished, fetishized yet contained. Konkona Sen Sharma's “The
Mirror '' from the Lust Stories 2 anthology subverts this trope, unflinchingly holding up a mirror
to the complexities of female sexuality. Through masterful visuals and searing performances by
Amruta Subhash and Tillotama Shome, the short film demands that we not just glance but stare -
at the raw yearning, the unabashed kink, the unapologetic claiming of pleasure.

Right from the opening frames, "The Mirror" establishes the centrality of the female gaze. The first erotic encounter is staged not as a salacious reveal but an awkward stumbling - one woman
catching another in a profound moment of intimacy neither are able to articulate. One woman
keeping a secret the other doesn’t know. The fact that Ishita continues to watch Seema and her
husband without their knowledge after catching them the first time is the act that establishes the
lesbian continuum. Coined by Adrienne Rich, the term “lesbian continuum” refers to the intimate
homosocial bonds that girls and women build and share. As these interactions, because of the
nature of intimacy, cannot be categorised with the absolutist terms “heterosexual” or
“homosexual”, Rich proposed the lesbian continuum which allows for intimate acts and
relationships between women to exist without categorising them as gay or straight. I believe that
Ishita and Seema’s voyeuristic relationship very much exists on this lesbian continuum, as it is
the shared yet unknown secret of each other’s voyeurism that gives both of them pleasure.

The film then becomes a space to explore kink as an idea within the playground of queer desire
(here I use the word “queer” as something that exists beyond the heteronormative norm). I would
like to commend the co-writer Pooja Tolani, music director Sagar Desai, and Sen for how
sensitively and seriously they depicted the relationship between Ishita and Seem. The lack of music in the beginning and the audible absence of upbeat, comedic tempos and melodies added a depth to the depiction of sexuality. There was no aha moment, no joke, no shocking Bollywood scene. No invocation of a taboo in a fun or comedic way. How low is the standard to depict a queer relationship: don’t make it funny or shocking for the shock value. Their collective decision to take Ishita and Seema’s desires seriously, treat it and them with respect and gravity is something that spoke to me on several levels. 

Furthermore, it upends traditional narratives where the male employer has an affair with a female
subordinate. Here, the power dynamic is flipped - it is Ishita, the wealthy employer, who pursues
Seema, her household maid. This reversal is subversive, imbuing their tryst with unsettling layers
of authority, allure and risk. In one exquisite scene, Seema plays a tantalizing game of
cat-and-mouse, surprising Ishita with her presence and relishing the thrill of holding this carnal
secret. Their charged glances and Seema’s suppressed grins reveal the intricate rituals of seduction they have choreographed. Yet this dance of passion simultaneously unmoors conventional notions of domestic propriety. The maid's bedroom becomes the theatre for the employer's desires, reducing Ishita to a voyeur in her own home - a searing emasculation of the upper-class household.

Despite this, "The Mirror" deftly avoids rupturing the sanctity of Seema's marriage. Her husband
is neither the stereotypical cuckold nor is their relationship derailed by her indiscretions. Instead,
the film posits female desire as a profound voyage of self-discovery that can uniquely coexist
with romantic commitment. Seema's liaisons with Ishita represent the unapologetic claiming of a
core part of her identity, rather than a betrayal.

Through these intricate power dynamics and narrative upheavals, the film lays bare the
paradoxes at the heart of female sexuality in contemporary India. Even as patriarchal norms are
subverted, echoing the radical transgressions of a previous feminist era, new hierarchies take
shape circumscribing the compass of female desire. "The Mirror" renders these complexities
exquisitely, using the same uncompromising gaze that its protagonist employs to forge new
vistas of identity and pleasure.

As desire escalates, Sen with costume designer Damini Das employ subtle visual cues to chart
Ishita's sexual awakening. Her tightly-wound bun gives way to a loose ponytail; her formal suits
are replaced by casual shirts, unbuttoned at the top as opposed to sharp collars and tightly shut
bosswoman couture. Ishita’s relaxation and acceptance of her desire is not just emotional but a
physical, visible change with the shift to lighter colours of her clothing as well. This transition is
a great depiction of the distributed creativity that goes into films: where costumes change with
the progression of the story instead of staying static, adding to the storytelling in a visible yet
subtle way while also aiding the actor to perform better, be their character better.

The spatial dynamics too shift - Ishita's bedroom, initially her confined haven, becomes a theatre
of desirous exploration, disrupting notions of public and private. Seema is not afforded “private”
space in terms of the way we know it with her entire family stuffed in one room somewhere in
Bombay’s chawals. Therefore, the space she creates in Ishita’s bedroom with her husband
becomes her private space. This trend of creating private spaces in a context not their own
continues in the alley scene where Kamal accepts Ishita’s desires. The subtle yet powerful
transformation of the public into the private is moving and monumental: Ishita and Seema’s
queer relationship is given the green light by someone other than them. Their desires are ratified
and this starts the path for both of them to heal and restart their relationship.

I love the cinematography of the film because of the tenderness with which it treats Ishita and
Seema. Usually, female characters are sexualised and objectified through following the curves of
their body, following the finger as it trails sexily down someone’s body in an item number. Here not just desire but anxiety, tension, release is shown through the camera’s focus on their necks.

The camera lingers and centres on Ishita's and Seema’s sweat-glazed skin, her arched neck -

reframing these as signifiers of desire rather than objectification. This gaze is reframed again

when Seema is cornered by Kamal in the alley, where her throat clenches up in terror and slowly

relaxes with his acceptance. The artful storytelling by cinematographer Anand Bansal truly

comes through with emotional and feminine-centric shots and scenes.

Crucially, in this reclamation of the female gaze, the film decentralises the male figure - a daring

move in the largely phallocentric cinematic landscape. Seema's husband could easily have been

portrayed as a stereotypical object of desire - a virile, chiselled man whose presence would

traditionally be demanded as a counterpoint to the female protagonists' sexuality. Yet Sen

Sharma with Casting Bay makes the radical choice of casting him as someone who defies

traditional tropes of masculine appeal. This small subversion holds immense significance. It

refuses to let the male form remain the default locus around which female desire must orbit and

locate itself.

Instead, "The Mirror" keeps its probing lens trained on the inner lives and intricacies of Seema

and Ishita. Their wants, their struggles, their furtive explorations of power and intimacy remain

at the radiant centre - not mitigated or framed as simple aberrations from male-centric norms.

The husband's characterised by a distinct absence of the male ego or machismo that so often

crowds out authentic portraits of women's sexuality on screen. In this sense, the film represents a

watershed moment, joining other recent works of Indian female filmmakers in insisting that the

entrenched phallocentric tropes of popular cinema can no longer contain the multitudes of female

desire.

Yet "The Mirror" refuses to be just another story of bourgeois female sexuality. Through Ishita's

character, it lays bare the intersections of desire, class, and societal censure. When their affair is

discovered, Seema faces limited shame and loss - she simply finds another job, two even! Ishita,

however, is utterly unmoored - ostracized by neighbours, robbed of her home, fired from her job,

and barred from mental peace. The consequences she suffers are viscerally depicted, from the

confrontation scene where accusations are hurled like grenades, to her desperate attempts at

preserving whatever shreds of her dignity remain. It is a sad and raw scene as the lesbian

continuum is disrupted. The denial of each other’s desires as soon as the secret is broken reeks of

a kind of internalized homophobia and is very much reminiscent of queer men and dating apps.

The rules of sexual interaction being: as long as you don’t kiss, keep the socks on, don’t cuddle,

don’t make your partner cum, treat your partner as a human being, it's not gay. Their unspoken

rule of not acknowledging each other kept up the pretense of it being not real. They always

indulged in desire with one foot already and always out the door. Because of this scene, the film

felt all the more real to me because I have suffered the same betrayal many times. I respect Konkona Sen Sharma as a filmmaker and director, Pooja Tolani, and Amruta and Tillotama as

actors all the more for it.

In this searing juxtaposition, the film asks powerful questions about whose desires are

legitimised and whose are rendered deviant. It strips away the faux-acceptance of upper-class

liberal attitudes, revealing how female sexuality is still circumscribed by rigid hierarchies of

caste, class and conventional marital norms. Even though desire transcends caste and class, they

very much dictate how Seema and Ishita react and perform. In the confrontation scene, the

reactions of both are very much performative in the beginning as they flounder in performative

anger, mock outrage all of which slowly turns real as neither of them want to back down. They

feel shame because they have been conditioned by society to feel it. They defend themselves

because neither of them wants to break the dominant hierarchy first, even though they have

broken it and have been operating outside it for months. In this way, caste and class has an

overarching presence in the short film.

Perhaps the greatest strength of "The Mirror" lies in its unflinching depiction of female

interiority - the rawness of longing, the intricacies of power dynamics and kink, the fraught

negotiation of societal barriers. Through scenes like Ishita's embarrassed glances when watching

the sleeping couple or Seema's anguished outburst about her daughter's ignorance and tryst with

the neighbourhood boy, it renders female desire as something primal yet deeply human.

Finally, we come to the brilliant performances of Amruta Subhash and Tillotama Shome. There

are many actors in the Indian film industries who have depicted queer relationships, relationships

beyond the dominant normal, and the characters who inhabit them as stereotypes, as comedic, as

people and things and dialogues to be laughed at, to be charmed by. I am eternally grateful to and

in awe of Amruta and Tillotama depicting Seema and Ishita with such dignity and empathy.

These actors were their characters, and the subtle nuances of their craft were breathtaking:

Ishita’s panic in the first scene, Seema’s wolfish and knowing grin in the scene with the plumber,

Ishita’s awkward fumbling with words throughout the film. I use the word craft because it

derives itself from Germanic and Dutch origins, meaning “strength; skill; to build”. It takes years

of practice and learning to pull off such immaculate performances and they transformed the film,

the work of Konkona, Pooja, Anand, Sagar, and Damini into something that gave me hope,

rather than one of horror and cringe when watching the other three films in the anthology.

In doing so, Konkona Sen Sharma's film emerges as a bold reclamation of the female gaze - one

that refuses to flinch, glance away or marginalise. "The Mirror" holds us captive in its

uncompromising reflection, demanding that we don't just perceive but truly see the realities of

female desire in all their messy, disruptive glory. And in that radical seeing, it forges new paths

of representation - ones where women can claim pleasure on their own terms without catering to the age-old tropes of titillation or punishment. A mirror has been powerfully held up; the choice

remains ours - to avert our eyes or look forthrightly at the truths it reveals.

To end with, Konkona Sen Sharma has stood out for me and is lauded by me not only for her and

her team’s film, but for her actions. She is the only director from the anthology to have posted

about the positive reviews her film received, and she posted about it while tagging her entire

team who helped make the project a success. I use the same IG post in this essay to identify

Pooja the writer, Damini the costume designer, Anand the cinematography director, and Sagar

the musician, not to mention Tillotama, Amruta, and Shrikant. Her effort towards recognising

and appreciating her team for the distributed creativity that made the film possible beyond the

required appreciation in terms of end credits is a start. Albeit small, it is a start. I hope to see

more of their work soon.

Bibliography

Lili Loofbourow, “The Male Glance”. VQR: A National Journal of Literature and Discussion.

Spring 2018 Issue. https://www.vqronline.org/essays-articles/2018/03/male-glance

Karen Pearlman, “Reframing the Director: Distributed Creativity in Filmmaking Practice” in

Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli (eds.) A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value. John

Wiley and Sons ltd: 2022, 86-105.

Konkona Sen Sharma (Director, et. al.). (2023) The Mirror (short film from the Lust Stories 2

anthology). RSVP Movies and Flying Unicorn Entertainment.

KSS’s post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuJglcRN93I/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Post text:

Thank you for all the love for Mirror - Lust Stories 2! These are some of the incredible team

behind the film. There are many who are missing here but thank you all for coming out to play!

1. Cameo by Lizard

2. My kickass AD team Chirag, Siddharth and Hitesh

3. My first collaborator in all things Disha Rindani.

4. Sister of my heart Costume Designer Damini Das.

5. Partner in crime Production Designer Tiya Tejpal

6. My inner eye Cinematographer Anand Bansal

7. Looking at my movie!

8. My Isheeta at the look test - the brave, the tremendous Tillotama, thanks for holding my hand

as we traversed this tricky terrain!

9. Seema and Kamal at rehearsals. Amruta the astonishing who can do anything and the moral

conscience of the film Shrikant Yadav, both of whom gently guided me through all kinds of

intimacies with warmth, dignity and trust.

10. My co writer Pooja Tolani - will we ever have so much fun again??

Director: @konkona

Producer: @ashidua @konkona @flyingunicornfilms @rsvpmovies

Writer: @poojatolani.21 & @konkona

Cast: @amrutasubhash @tillotamashome @yadavshrikant

Platform: @netflix_in

Executive Producer: @mehrasahil

Cinematographer: @anandbansal2810

Editor: @djangokaza

Music: @saggydeee

Production Designer: @teebirdfly

Costume Designer: @damini_styles

Associate Director: #DishaRindani

Post Producer: @akananai

Colorist: @mahak_gupta_

Sound Design & Engineer: @devbibin

Hair & Make-up: @sangeetarawal19 @jaykanojia

Casting: @castingbay

Visual Effects: @smrollingfx #16BitProductions

First AD: @kochar.chirag

Line Producer: @ravishankar_1987

Script Supervisor: @mishra.sakshi

Sound Recordist: @kodadirajesh

First AC: @priiyaam

Art Director: @richardviag_artdir

Set Decorator: @PappuKaana

Second AD: @thesidharth

Second AD: @mysurumasaladosa

Prop Master: @shalmolee.m

Second AC: @kintuparantu

Focus Puller: @sibamaity

Costume Assistant: @niddhi_jain

Associate Editor: #HimanshuSharma @pooja_jpillai

Assistant Colorist: @kuttz_

Production Manager: @AmitMaru0312

Production Manager: #WassimMukadam

Production Executive: @ajitabhsingh

Intern AD: @some_pretentious_name

Picture Finishing Studio: @bridgepostworks

Sound Studio: @dnbstudioz