Subhash K Jha shines the spotlight on Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara, which featured an the incredible ensemble cast of Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vivek Oberoi and Bipasha Basu. We also hear from Kareena Kapoor Khan about her role and brilliant performance in the 2006 film.
Omkara is no ordinary work of art. It’s a full-blown treatise on the politics of the human heart. Male and female bonding is paramount to Bhardwaj’s plot. In his amazing understanding of both Shakespeare’s tragic resonances and UP’s ruinous politics, the director is next to none.
He spills the beans in swirls of authentic colours. The cast and crew pitch in their might with pliable strength. The cinematography (Tassaduq Hussain) capturing the fading rusty browns of UP’s damned alleys , the editing (Meghna Manchanda) cutting the shots with an arresting alacrity, and the sound (songs and background score by Vishal Bhardwaj) mixing the pain and passion of hearts in fright…all add up to a roster of remarkable fertility.
Most of all, it’s the stars who are caught in a light never seen before. From the newcomer Deepak Dobriyal who plays Kareena’s jilted bride-groom to Naseeruddin Shah as Devgan’s mentor… the actors are almost unrecognizable in their verbal and visual transformation. The plot simmers with the dynamic discontent generated by actors who know what they’re doing.
Devgan and Oberoi are first-rate. But Khan in an author-backed role not just steals but also the seals the show.
Among the ladies Kareena’s Desdemonia/Dolly is a bang-on epitome of inviolable innocence. Konkona’s waif-life exuberance reminds you of the early Jaya Bhaduri. Bipasha Basu’s two saucy item songs crackle and hiss with a hypnotic blend of the earthy and the unattainable.
Nothing in this film is a prop. Except, of course, life which stands mute testimony to the dance of death that these grand-children of Shakespeare perform on a no-man’s-land… Or shall we say, a know-man’s land, since the directors seems to know Shakespeare and UP- politics equally well. In the brutal heartland of Uttar Pradesh lives a Shakespearean anti-hero called Omkara. He’s the desi re-incarnation of Shakespeare’e Othello.
And he’s everything that Shakespeare couldn’t make him… not his fault, really. When the immortal playwright wrote his best-known tragedy he had no idea of the graver tragedy that awaited India’s political heartland.
Delving deep into the bowels of North-Indian politics Vishal comes up with a gallery of virile characters who jump out of their literary antecedents and do a dance of crime-driven dynamics on the nozzle of their country-made guns.
Omkara looks, feels and smells authentic. When gang-wars break out on the rusty roads of a small town in UP among Omkara, his mentor Bhaisaab (Naseeruddin Shah) and Omkara’s two favourite disciples Kesu (Oberoi) and Langda Tyagi (Khan) and their opponents , you’re no longer watching the characters, you’re looking at a world where Shakespeare must sound like a spear that shakes.
Besides the fact that he has cast superstars as characters , Vishal Bhardwaj’s biggest achievement is the irony that underlines the murky goings-on in the hellish political cauldron of the cow-belt: these are boorish guys driven by a literary background of which they are clueless.
Shakespeare is as alien to Vishal’s characters as a creative compromise would be to this bludgeoning filmmaker.
Vishal hits you hard and long with his political parable. The most interesting exchanges among the characters are the ones that describe the dynamics of gender and politics in a world where laws are made to be broken.
Into this anarchic wilderness, a tender love story creeps in. Omkara’s uncharacteristic lapse into tenderness when he meets the fragile Dolly (Kareena Kapoor) is a subtle sly Desdemonian touch that makes us want to crave for much more.
Vishal delivers. This is a film which is as picturesque as it’s sensuous. If the scenes of gang-war are in-your-face, the love scenes don’t flinch away from the truth about these carnal creatures of the night who love and hate in equal measures.
The ‘Iago’ factor from Othello is tapped to elicit a kind of de-frozen sentimentality in a milieu that shuns sentimentality and yet wallows in theatrical emotions.
The characters live for the moment and die for a cause that no one really cares to study in-depth. That’s what makes the political dynamics of contemporary India so deliciously ironical.
Omkara milks that irony to Shakespearean advantage. The dialogues (written by the director) add sizeably to the grotesque but nonetheless grand stature of characters ensnared in their own web of crime deceit and little or no punishment from any man-made law.
The Omkara-Langda relationship is the film’s pivot. Iago’s machiavellian jealousy in Othello, is transposed into a state of stunning bedroom politics. Saif Ali Khan as the ruthlessly scheming cow-belt Iago is so authentic you wonder where all that evil comes from!
The sweet urban dude is here transformed into a foul-tongued diabolic vermin with not a shred of shame or remorse.
Have we seen a more vivid depiction of humanized evil? I can’t recall a more loathsome creature of self-interest than Saif’s Langda Tyagi.
Ajay Devgan’s Omkara is suitably subdued and malleable. He offsets Saif’s evil with a kind of gullible machismo that goes well in his romantic overtures with Dolly (Kareena), or even his lovely moments of sibling bonding with Langda’s wife Indu (Konkona Sen).
Devgan’s Omkara is supple and obstinate at the same time. By the time Langa takes over his mind completely, his undying passion for his beloved is turned into a viperous mass of self-destructive jealousy and tragedy.
Bhardwaj controls the inter-relations with enormous skill. Every character exists through his or her bonding with his immediate surroundings. Every relationship is full-blooded and passionate. Every friendship and enmity crackles and hisses with serpentine intensity. Every roar of the gun is a battle-call.
Kareena Kapoor was gung-ho about Omkara on the eve of its release. “I feel I’ve been re-born in Omkara. Vishal’s emotions are very real. I did another realistic film Govind Nihalani’s Dev. But I didn’t have much to do there. Things have changed a lot since then. Today audiences are far more open to new cinematic experiences. Whether it’s an out-and-out entertainer like Don or an intense gripping drama like Omkara, the audience is ready for any kind of new experience. I want to be in every film of Vishal. He’s going to be one of our most distinguished directors after Omkara. Which he already is, by the way, after Maqbool. Vishal has shot Omkara like an international film.”
Adding, “All the actors knew the importance of what they were doing. Saif was fully prepared. As Langda Tyagi he worked on everything from walk to talk. We were all aware of the fact that we were putting Shakespeare to screen. Vishal made us go through a couple of workshops. He knew exactly what he wanted. Saif and I have only a couple of scenes together. We had worked together in LOC. My co-star in Omkara is Ajay Devgan. He’s a fabulous person. I know him from my childhood when he was my sister’s co-star. Ajay was involved in the film’s production in every way possible. And he played the title role. I had most of my scenes with him. Ajay made everything so much easier for me. Omkara has me speaking in a different accent and dialect. But Ajay and Konkona have a much tougher dialect than me and Viveik Oberoi. The dialogues are so well written by Vishal. Konkona is such a lovely girl. We’s still in touch even after the film. She’s so casual in spite of being such a good artiste. She’s effortlessly good in her scenes. I was supposed to do her role in Page 3. Good she did it. I couldn’t have done it as well as her.I think I’m more prepared for it now. I regret turning down Shyam Benegal’s film too”
She continued saying, “I’ve decided to take on only roles that challenge me. No more routine roles even in big projects. I don’t mind saying no to anybody. After Omkara, I feel I’ve reached a stage where I need to build on my reputation as an actress. It needn’t be offbeat or realistic. But I’m all for a film that goes into unknown territory. I think audiences are tired of watching boy meets girl. They want to know what happens after that. Until I get something as challenging as Omkara I’d rather stay at home and play with my niece Samaira. I want to do only the roles that challenge me as an actress. It doesn’t have to be something that centres on me. But I must have something interesting to do. I’m willing to wait. Even if I’ve to wait for a year I’m willing to do so. I won’t compromise on my roles. If I had the guts to start my career with Refugee I can very well do something unexpected at this stage of my career. Today cinema has changed. So have I. I want to adapt to audiences’ changing tastes. Today all actors need to adapt themselves to a new kind of cinema. Even as a person I’ve matured considerably. When you’re younger you tend to be more impulsive and immature. There were a lot of unanswered questions in my life. Today I feel confident enough to take the right decisions about my life and career.”
