The Hindu : New Delhi News : A jolly good show from Bollywood

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 30, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

A jolly good show from Bollywood

ZIYA US SALAM

OMKARA

(At Delite, Chanakya and other Delhi theatres)

This is a treat in ways more bountiful than a cloudburst can contain. We have Kareena Kapoor, a girl blessed with a face that can interest a man all day long, from dawn in eager anticipation of dusk. We have Bipasha Basu, a girl with eyes whose glow can keep you awake all night long. Then there is Konkona Sen Sharma, a girl so cherubic with speech that it is a joy to be a man and listening, enraptured.

But what is a woman not given to life beyond pleasure? A woman unable to discern vile, that weapon of the vicious to be used on the gullible, is easy prey. And predictability, as many an experienced hand will tell you, is no virtue. Hence Shakespeare's women used men, and men used them. They teased trust; they fiddled with faith. Some of them loved and lost. And in the ensuing play, intrigue, guile, brinkmanship all got a free run. As they do here in a film so delightful and, in many ways, so much ours!

Really, Vishal Bhardwaj's offering is in many ways the coming of age cinema. With trenchant dialogue and naughty folk songs, he weaves together a tale that derives so much from Shakespeare's work and yet stands on its own legs. Little elegance and hard-hitting cinema with all fangs bared, this is more than just a gentle rap on the knuckles. Bhardwaj takes you by the jugular with his words, with his action, with his screenplay. And in the end leaves you trying to hum along with songs, which are a shade awry even in the below-the-belt category.

Gone is the English sophistry in the adaptation here; added is a dash of street humour. Rusticity was seldom so appealing.

If Bipasha is suitably vulgar as the nautch girl in UP, Konkona --Shakespeare's Emilia and Bhardwaj's Indu -- catches you by surprise by mouthing dialogues that leave you stunned. And she says it all with unabashed abandon and barely half a cheeky smile on her face! And you thought she was supposed to be a goodie-goodie girl! Think again, the girl in many ways provides the female highlight of the film.

But why are we talking only of girls, beautiful, brazen and bountiful as they are? Othello was about men.

"Omkara" is about men too. Ajay Devgan in the title role is all simmer and disaffection, except that for a larger part Bhardwaj gives him the cloak of gullibility. Saif Ali Khan as Iago or Langda Tyagi gets the best lines, the maximum corny dialogues. He plays to the masses. And with his suitably earthy get-up scores a point or two over Viveik Oberoi who manages to grab the wooden spoon among all the actors. In a film throbbing with vitality, he is the limp factor. While Saif uses all tricks of deceit in trade, and some out of it to hide his ambition - he has been ignored in the race for finding Omkara's heir apparent - Devgan comes up with a restrained effort that might just be beyond the grasp of the less discerning.

That is something you won't say about the film. Despite its slow pace, very many expletives and some faults of editing, it scores as a director's film. Tassaduq Husain's photography is a delight; Gulzar's lyrics are a revelation in ways unexpected. And Vishal Bhardwaj's film is a joy.

LADY IN THE WATER

(At PVR Saket and other Delhi theatres)

Manoj Night Shyamalan... . The name evokes interest in a section of the audience. His "Sixth Sense", "Signs" and "The Village" all the way from Hollywood passed muster. Just about. So now he does what he has been doing ever since the world took note of his story-telling skills: spin together a story that he aims to take to destination with a simple narration and meticulous attention to detail. The problem with Shyamalan here is, there is no story! Just an incredible little one-liner that Shyamalan cajoles us to believe is a story.

He winks at the audience, he nudges them to believe that once there was a narf, once a girl emerged out of the colony swimming pool at night and landed at the manager's apartment. He actually wants us to believe that she is from another world, and wants to go back to her own zone except that the elements, hideous and hiding, won't let her! In a moment of generosity we would have believed that too, but she is so human! Just like any of us.

If that is not expecting too much, then Shyamalan persuades us to believe that all the characters around are actually from another place! Come on, you might as well believe that the world revolves around the earth!

Yes, it is a bedtime fable the director related to his kids. Just a little point: cinema is not for bedtime stories. And we are not kids. And those among the audience who are will find the goings-on too detailed, too slow, too lethargic to enjoy. Now add the fact that the narf is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard's dazzled daughter, clad in a shirt her father would have worn to work, and you have a picture that fails to move. Yes, some of the characters, notably of Paul Giomatti as the apartments' manager, and Shyamalan himself as Vic Ran, are engaging.

By the way, Paul's work is easily the highlight of the film where lights look beautiful at night, guys and gals speak the right language, and a Chinese family adds the stereotype of Oriental superstition. But a constant eerie feeling is no entertainment and the sound of creepers at night no great excitement.

Want to take a splash with "Lady in the Water"? Do so at your own risk. Chances are you will barely find a ripple of excitement.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi

News Update

Stories in this Section