OM SHANTI OM

(2007, Hindi, 162 minutes) Directed by Farah Khan; Produced by Gauri Khan and Red Chilies Entertainment Story: Farah Khan; Screenplay: Mushtaq Sheikh and Farah Khan; Dialogue: Mayur Puri; Lyrics: Javed Akhtar; Music: Vishal-Shekhar; Choreography: Farah Khan; Cinematographer: V. Manikandan; Sound Design: Nakul Kamte; Art Direction: Sabu Cyril; Costumes: Karan Johar, Manish Malhotra, Sanjiv Mulchandani Farah Khans second film as director is an extravagant tribute to the industry she grew up loving, and in which she hasafter the massive success of this filmconfirmed her position as a leading director (becoming the first woman to achieve this stature). Its complex and ingenious storyline manages to simultaneously succeed in three registers: as delicious parody, sincere homage, and (in its own right) powerfully engaging melodrama. Yet to say all this is barely to hint at the delights that OM SHANTI OM (hereafter OSO) offers to Hindi cinephiles. Liberally peppering the screenplay, from the get-go, with allusions to films, stars, and directors of the past, with witty double entendres, and with fully-

acknowledged tropes, the director and her team seem to wink at us and declare, Now watch as, through the magic of Hindi cinema, we make you care about these timeworn clichs all over again! That they pull this off, in spades, to the accompaniment of a uniformly memorable score and gorgeous visuals, is an amazing achievement that results in one of the most exuberantly entertaining films in recent memory. generation!) performed by silver-lam On the level of narrative, suited Rishi Kapoor and a bevy of item OSO is a story of betrayal, girls atop a giant rotating 33-rpm murder, and revenge featuring a reincarnated hero. record, being filmed by director Subhash Ghai (in a Ghai-like cameo as Merely to say this, in the himself), and with both Farah and Shah Bombay cinematic context, immediately brings to mind Rukh placed among the on-set crowd of adoring fan-extras singing along with (at least) two watershed the songs chorus (which is, of course, predecessors: 1958s the mantra-phrase Om shanti om), MADHUMATI, starring Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala, and then dissing each other about the unlikelihood of one day becoming, the most commercially respectively, a director and a starand successful film of the great Bengali director Bimal Roy; all this, mind you, in a five-minute and 1980s KARZ, with Rishi teaser-plus-credit sequence. (Despite Kapoor and Simi Grewal, one the Ghai tribute here, the film confirms of the biggest hits of Subhash that director Khans work so far may fit Ghai; indeed, both films are best in the cinematic lineage of the lovingly referenced. The lattergreat Manmohan Desai, and, as with one of his frenetic multi-starrers, you was clearly a key text for director Khan as a youngster, are well advised not to blink during OSOs opening sequence or and OSO opens with an thereafter.) imaginary and digitallytweaked recreation of the shooting of one of its most celebrated musical numbers: the disco extravaganza Mere umar ke (O youths of my The theme of the recurrent recycling of lives and

storylinesa reality of the course, is to Raj Kapoors RK Studios modern film industry that of two decades earlier, and its campus echoes Indian metaphysics is a wildly nostalgic evocation of the and folk narrativecontinues, long-dead studio era in Bombay cinema, and we will soon find our with fountains, gardens, and principal characters involved gorgeously-lit art-deco buildings and in shooting a spectacular statuary: a pastel-tinted revivification of movie titled Om Shanti Om, the Ajanta Studios of Guru Dutts a drama involving rebirth, the KAAGAZ KE PHOOL (1959). production of which will be aborted and then resumed three decades later by the reincarnation of one of them. Om and his indefatigable buddy Pappu Given that the duplicate hero (the charming Shreyas Talpade) wander is named, in both births, Om, blissfully through this theme-park in polyester-mod attire (Oms includes a and is in love with/haunted Desai-like pendant of Hindu, Muslim, by a single heroine named and Christian talismans), appearing as Shanti, the title formula acquires yet another layer of extras in parodied filmic scenes, while dreaming of stardom and, equally meaning. improbably, of a match-up for Om with his fantasied girlfriend, the starlet Shanti Priya (radiantly incarnated by Hero number one is Om newcomer Deepika Padukone, albeit Prakash Makhija (Shahrukh this successful fashion model is a good Khan), a peppy, film-smitten ten kilos too light for a 70s heroine), junior artist (bit player or and interacting-cum-overacting extra) in a late-70s film factory called RC Studios, the ostensible site of the soundstage location for the opening KARZ shoot. But the allusion, of course, is to Raj Kapoors RK Studios of two decades earlier, and its campus is a wildly nostalgic evocation of the long-dead studio era in Bombay cinema, each sequence, is then assumed in

with fountains, gardens, and fantasy by the spectatorial Om. housefly in Hindi) and he urges him to assume the moniker Kapoor, like that of And when he subsequently saves Shanti from an out-of-control haystack their idol, the stocky and conflagration during an outdoor shoot bouffant-coifed Rajesh (recapitulating Sunil Dutts reputed Kapoor (Jawed Sheikh). rescue of Nargis on Mehboob Khans MOTHER INDIA set, which led to their love and later marriage), and then But Oms fortunes take a turn convinces her that he is a star of Tamil when he and Pappu, doubly cinema (via a hilarious sendup of a impersonating Manoj Kumar Rajnikant-style western), she favors (who briefly protested this him with an evening of her company: a satire of his patriotism and dream date that he and Pappu mount penchant for hiding his face on a soundstage to the accompaniment behind one raised hand!), of the romantic "Main agar kahoon" (If crash the premiere of ShantisI say), offering up another lavish new film Dreamy Girl. bouquet of cinematic quotations Becoming entangled in her (including, to my eyes at least, Gene diaphanous dupatta, Om gets Kellys similar wooing of Debbie to gaze close-up at his Reynolds in SINGIN IN THE RAIN). beloved to the accompaniment of the lovely ballad "Ajab si" (In your Too soon, Oms romantic hopes are eyes, theres a strange magic). This is soon followed shattered by the discovery, through an accidentally-overheard by the film-within-a-filmsong "Dhoom taana," ostensibly from Dreamy Girl, but in fact a tour-de-force of periodparodying choreography and costumes, glittering sets, and digital effects that seamlessly pair Shanti with the appropriately youthful Sunil Dutt, Rajesh Khanna, and Jeetendrawhose place, in

dressing-room conversation, that Shanti loves another: the dashing producer Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal), an ambitious cad to whom she has unwisely given both her heart and her body, though he has kept their marriage a secret in order to pursue a more advantageous engagement to a filmfinanciers daughter.

Mehra dreams of making Om Shanti Om, the most lavish Bombay talkie of all time, with a palatial set suggestive of the European baroque (and of Judge Raghunaths mansion in AWARA), but when this is thwarted by Shantis revelation that she is pregnant with his child, the producer adopts the fiendish strategy of eliminating both her and the set of his nowdoomed feature. In the truly breathtaking sequence that ends the first half of the film, Om tries heroically to save her, only to himself expire from multiple injuriesin the very hospital in which superstar Kapoors wife is simultaneously giving birth to a son. Amazingly, the Desailike climactic collision of

wildly improbable coincidence and high tragedy leaves both unscathed, and ready for more action thirty years later, after the Interval.

Now, the hapless Om Prakash has become superstar Om Kapoor, a.k.a. O.K., the callow and selfcentered scion of a film dynasty, ensconced in the very mansion outside which (in his former life) he delivered a mock Filmfare awardacceptance speech to a group of street urchins. His face looks the same, albeit with a less-greasy hairstyle, and his wrist tattoo of om has mysteriously endured as a shadowy burn

scar.

His body, however, has morphedas those of all Bombay heroes did beginning in the late 80s into a Buff Hunk (a real physical transformation that reportedly took the fortytwo-year old SRK six grueling weeks of training to effect). The results are shown off in the item song Dard-e-disco (The pain of disco), which O.K. insists on inserting as a dream sequence into the climax of a hokey melodrama in which he plays a blind and deaf cripple attending his beloveds marriage to

another man. Costumed by SRK-devotee and director Karan Johar, this pounding take on Bombay cinemas recent fetishization of the male body is (like OSO in general) simultaneously hilarious parody and exemplary specimen-ofthe-genre.

But like the Om shanti om song in KARZ, it also triggers the heros frightening flashbacks to his former life and death, which intensify when he attends a location shoot for a cheesy superhero flick called Mohabbat Man (Love-Man)in the burned-out ruins of RC

Studios. The alternation of campy comedy and gathering drama continues through an amazing sendup of the Filmfare awards (complete with good-spirited cameos by Abhishek Bachchan and Akshay Kumar, spoofing themselves), at which O.K. wins Best Actor, followed by a celebrity bash that (with thirtyone real stars in boogeying attendance during the wildly-danceable song "Deewangi deewangi" [craziness], with another reprised chorus of om shanti om) considerably outdoes Manmohan Desais similar party scene in

NASEEB.

Yet this item, too (which drove Indian theater audiences into a frenzy of cheering as each new star appeared), smoothly returns to the developing plot, with the sinister entrance of Mukesh Mehra, now gray-haired and foreignreturned (after a successful career as a producer in that Other big film industry) and eager to undertake Oms next project. The hero recognizes his and Shantis nemesis, and soon finds his way back to Mother Makhijas flat, to reunite with her and with Pappu; Kirron Khers

teary performance here naturally evokes Durga Khotes in KARZ, as a seemingly demented old woman who has clung for decades to the belief that her long-dead son will one day return.

It remains to bring the villain to justicebut how? The evidence of a reincarnated witness will hardly hold up in court! Om and Pappu contrive a scheme that requires convincing the producer to bankroll a revival of the Om Shanti Om project, complete with a rebuilt set in the blackened studio ruins, and

Sandhya/Sandy , a clueless young thing from Bangalore, drafted to impersonate the ghost of Shanti.

The dazzling final song, "Daastaan-e-om shanti om" (The saga of Om Shanti Om), in which the hero recreates Shantis betrayal and murder, occurs on the sets grand staircase, blending melody and lyrics that skillfully reference those of the comparable song sequence in KARZ ("Ek haseena thi," There was a young beauty) along with visuals that seem to nod at Andrew Lloyd Webers Phanto

m of the Opera. The surprising denouement that follows, however, amply displays the directors own karz (debt ) to the great Bimal Roy and his haunting MADHUMATI. OSO as narrative and spectacle is such engrossing entertainment that its pure pleasure seemed, on my first few viewings, to overwhelm any critical reflection, yet some intriguing subtexts have since come to mind. Farah Khans rise from innovative choreographer (e.g., of DIL SE and numerous other films, and of the London and Broadway musical Bombay Dreams) to leading director,

has been brokered by her friend Shah Rukh Khan, whose production company financed both her films. Their close relationship is palpable in the films loving treatment of its star, and one may even detect a hint, in the respective incarnations of Om, of SRKs own biography: his metamorphosis from a Delhibased unknown, lacking a filmdynasty pedigree, to King Khan, the dominant male star of Bombay since 1995. Then, too, the films insider parody of the Hindi film industry, densely intertextual and deliciously smart, stands in stark

contrast to the cheap-shot satire of a film like Deepa Mehtas HOLLYWOODBOLLYWOOD (2002), which panders to every Western journalistic clich about the alleged mindless dream factories of Bombaythe same sort of condescension exemplified by the odious chapter on the industry in Pico Iyers poptravelogue Video Night in Kathmandu(1989 ). Instead, OSO affectionately celebrates the energy and heartbeat of the cinema that billions love, and its principals manage to combine a kind of desi innocence with a plucky pride. Everything about the film exudes

confidence: Farah Khans in her directors role (ironically exemplified by her ongoing gags about the irrelevance of directors in stardriven Bombay, even as she crafts what is, from start to finish, quintessentially a directors film, with every frame carefully filled with remarkable details), and the industrys confidence in itself as purveyor of glossy and globallyconsumed entertainment that occasionally, as here, rises to greatness. It is no secret that most people in the Bombay film business despise the media label Bollywood, with its suggestion of a derivative phenomenon,

and SRK has publicly stated this (in an interview in Nasreen Munni Kabirs documentary, Th e Inner World of Shah Rukh Khan). Yet the term has now acquired too much global brand recognition to be altogether avoided. And so it is a particularly nice moment in OSO when the slimy Mukesh Mehra, powerlunching with Om Kapoor in a restaurant looking out at the Bombay skyline, responds to the stars calling him Mukesh by saying, Call me Mike. Everyone in Hollywood does. Then, when Mike directs a remark to Om, the latter ripostes, Call me O.K.

Everyone in Bollywood doeswith a slight pause that seems to both savor and distance this labelwhich is here strategically deployed in a verbal duel with a traitor who has abandoned both Shanti and the Motherland. Vah! How else to end than with: Jai Hind! and Jai Farah Khan!

[The Eros Entertainment 2-DVD set of OM SHANTI OM features good sound and image quality, the usual extras disc, and, via the main ones set-up menu option, an audio directors commentary that is unusually interesting (though Farah sounds, as one might imagine, a bit tired). Subtitles accompany songs as well as dialog, and are mostly fine, though one inexcusable gaff (in the MOTHER INDIA parody scene) results in the unrecognizable butchering of the names of Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy, and Guru Dutt! Whoever is responsible for this crime surely deserves retribution in a future life.]

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