After the Kiss. Review on Omkara

Omkaradefies the template of mainstream Hindi

cinema. It is thought provoking, panning people in

flesh and blood, showing how human psyche is

overshadowed by jealousy and suspicion, so integral to

human ethos evn centuries after the bard's verse.

In Othello, when Iago’s ego is hurt, his internal

conflict - loyalty tossed with bitter resentment - is

expressed through verbose soliloquy. In tinsel town,

Saif conveys those grey emotions with furtive

roleplays like a sharp aside, a quick puerile glance

or mere hand shuffling. No longer the candyfloss dude,

Saif rocks in Omkara!

Shakespeare's plays being eternal slices of life, are

easy to churn as reuseable tales. Adapt them to your

own cultural contours and voila! Umpteen directors

around the world have borrowed, interpreted,

transcreated and been influenced by Shakespeare.

Vishal Bharadwaj carries the mantle from his own

Maqbool (Macbeth). Flashback to Akira Kurosawa’s

masterpiece, 'The Throne Of Blood'(Macbeth)or oue own

Gulzar’s Angoor(Comedy Of Errors).

'Omkara', too, like Othello is a dark, sombre tale of

a moor in love with a fair maiden, but so ensnared in

his own suspicion and jealousy that he kills her in a

fit of violent rage. The director sieves the plot and

ambience replacing the powerful medieval Venetian

statecraft with the gory lumpen regime in today's

Uttar Pradesh. Hence the feudal upper castes still

dominate the oppressed, downtrodden masses, stifling

voices and annihilating them to dust.

'Omkara'Ajay Devgan, the dark, blue-eyed acolyte of

politician-don Naseeruddin and his main henchman

abducts or rescues (depending on which side of the

fence you are) his paramour Kareena from an arranged

marriage imbroglio. His cronies in this mammoth, noble

task are his fellow goons, loyal Saif and casanova

Vivek Oberoi. But when Ajay names Vivek as his

successor, Saif feels betrayed and silently broods

while cussing out vociferously to take revenge.

A sledgehammer screenplay and switchblade

characterisation obviously are Vishal’s forte. The

director follows a simple axiom in extracting

powerhouse performances. He doesn’t let the emotional

baggage of elizabethan England burden him. Thus

nothing is lifted but the flow of scenes is

transcreated. As a skilled wordsmith, he builds a plot

and indigenous characters convincingly rooted in local

milieu.

While Naseeruddin pulls off his shots effortlessly,

Konkana shines predictably. But the real icing is

Saif, an emotional outburst in semi-sepia, the

brilliant fade in as 'Omkara's crafty ambitious

sidekick turned malevolent foe.