Since the millennium, the writer-director-composer Sanjay Leela Bhansali has fashioned a series of ornate wonders from mythological and historical material.
He broke through with 2002’s Shah Rukh Khan-starring Devdas, then delivered 2005’s affecting Black – an expressionist The Miracle Worker – before going for broke on 2013’s Ram-Leela, casting Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh as the eponymous star-crossed lovers.
With Bajirao Mastani, another epic tableau scattered with jewels and rose petals, Bhansali retains his Ram-Leela leads and channels David Lean – albeit a Lean with something far spicier than starch in his underwear. The result may be the cinema’s most seductive monument to marital infidelity.