4- 22- 16 Om Shanti Om

Om Shanti Om (OSO) was perhaps the most wild ride of a film thus far and particularly interesting because of its self-reflexivity as Om Prakash and OK are constantly parodying the most common tropes in the biggest Bollywood films as well as various Western tropes and as Sudha Shastri notes the “nostalgic recall of 1970s Bollywood is fond, but its implied comment on the genre of films that seem to qualify for awards is definitely sardonic.” While parodying these tropes, the film is being highly critical of these very elements, particularly with male-star favoritism and the mostly progression of further lack of originality and creation of, as Patrick says, “vapid movie stars.”

OSO has two distinct halves to the story of the film and with those two halves there is a particularly commentary assigned to each in that the beginning half of the film we have the character Om Prakash, the “junior artiste”as he calls himself but is a character that lives and breathes acting, accepting any role he can seem to get his hands on. On top of this, his character is one of the most redeeming qualities when compared with latter half of the film's embodiment into Om Kapoor (OK). The vast majority of intertexual examples are during the first half of the film, which is during the 70s, arguing for a time when film was varying and interesting without using sexuality and senseless action as a crutch like we see when OK attends the award ceremony and are subjected to watch a snippet from an Ali-G-esque (hilarious) monstrosity of a movie depicting a dime-a-dozen “badass” who literally catches his opponents' bullets, turns them into a grenade and chucks it behind him, exploding, followed by his ridiculous handgun-in-his-pants-pelvic-thrusting method of killing his enemies. The scene features virtually no dialogue and the means by which the protagonist vanquishes his enemies is via a deadly, sexual motion and his “weapon”.

During these awards, the winner of course being OK, the viewers are then shown scenes from his two award winning films in which they are the EXACT same only with different titles. This is a heavy-handed criticism of the integrity of modern Bollywood film in comparison with film of the past. This said, the film still takes time to knock these massive oldie-blockbusters down a notch when we have the privelege of watching Om take on the role of a hero in a god awful, hokey Western featuring a plush tiger and terrible special effects and overacting which is lauded by spectators, which I can't decide if it was sarcastic within the universe or sarcastic in its self-reflexivity. We can see how far film has come and how much interests are changing.

The film uses a lot of shots that focus intensely on Om and OK ranging from closeups to full-body shots almost all featuring him centered in the screen, particularly in most of the musical numbers. This serves to enhance the absurd level of OK's self-centered and borderline narcissism but could also be read into the fact that there is an obvious male-star favoritism in Bollywood as well as commenting on the simplistic way in which films create and emphasize main characters without any subtlety.

Overall, OSO is extremely successful in creating both a cohesive Bollywood film whilst criticizing the film itself and cinematic artistry in general as time progresses and the integrity of plot, storytelling, characterization, and cinematic practices all change, and as the film suggests, for the worst. But again, we're still reminded that we had bad movies during the ages where we find ourselves praising for being part of the best era of film and storytelling. 

Monsoon Wedding 4 -13 -16

Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding, successfully tackles the difficult task of creating a film that is globally accessible (excluding the obvious limitations of representing every language and culture) and with the lofty decision to do so, Nair's movie takes on sexuality in different ways through its bevvy of differentiated characters. The expression of various elements of sexuality is in some way a boon directly tied to the decision to create a film aimed, in part, at the Western audiences as well as Indian audiences.

With characters coming from Australia, Southwest Asia, America, and India for a wedding, almost ironically, the first important character and scene we see them in is, what we learn in retrospect, of an affair between to-be-wed Aditi and her ex-boyfriend. Aditi, being one of the characters living in India. The irony of her characters actions is that it goes against the traditionally conservative and normative (arguably more female) Indian relationship. But when we reach the few shots regarding Tej and his young niece, there comes such an effective instillation of concern over the their relationship together using a shot that deliberately blocks out Tej from view as he bends over Aliya to feed her, slowly revealing Tej as Ria gets closer to the door. This development, as Jenny Sharpe writes in her book “Gender, Nation, And Globalization,” is “the disturbing topic of sexual molestation—a subject too controversial for popular Indian cinema,” and is one that is able to be included due to Nair making the movie under their New York-based company, Mirabai Films (Sharpe 61).

Having a New York-based company to produce the film through is not exactly enough to avoid alienating too large a population of viewers and so Nair specifically maintains multiple story arcs which buttress the film as a whole but also soften the serious, and in the case of Tej, sinister alternate plots. Of these various plots, we also see Varun's troubling relationship with his parents as they struggle (mostly the father) to understand/accept their son's very likely homosexuality and actually plan to send him to boarding school in an attempt to somehow squelch the homosexuality out of him by surrounding him with more boys (logic). Varun's arc within the movie is received globally by the west and in India in likely a similar way as in the early 2000s, when narratives surrounding homosexuality were making slow integrations into popular culture and cinema in positive and less stereotypical ways. Nair blends Varun's sexuality into the milieu of the film without ham-fistedly expressing it through characterization. By presenting this film with the globalized scope that is has, Varun stands as a character that is able to be accepted by merely depicting the realistic struggles that he faces with his parents.

We also have the young, lust-driven romance between Rahul and Ayesha, the two frequently stealing glances at each other as well as show Ayesha sneaking off into the night, scantily clothed, to meet Rahul, who is just in his underwear. Before this scene, we see Ayesha practicing their dance routine together when Rahul enters the room and Ayesha immediately runs up to him to flaunt in front of him, the camera hastily following along and zooming in to position itself at Rahul's eye-level, keeping Ayesha's lower half of her body as the centerpiece for as much as the shot as possible to further suggest her sexual nature and Rahul's willing sexual appetite.

And then there is the earnest romance between Dubey and Alice who exhibit more of a traditional Bollywood style flirtation with their innocent looks and youthful, uncomfortable and quiet amour shared with each other throughout the movie.

Rahul and Ayesha represent the non-traditional while Dubey and Alice represent the traditional. Both romances project a certain notion of egalitarianism by Dubey marrying beneath his caste and by Ayesha willing exploring her own sexual self without the guidance or restriction of a patriarchal presence. As Jamila mentions in her presentation, the women in the film, like Aditi, are able to choose “to be a sexual being.” The same freedom is given to Ria (as well as Aliya), not sexually, but as a character that had specifically been taken advantage of by a patriarchal figure as a young girl and was later in the film released from this power dynamic with the help of Lalit in his public demonstration to remove Tej from the party, and likely from the family in a larger sense.

Overall, the film takes many liberties with the blending of western and Indian cultural norms, traditions, and other commentaries in order to create a globally inviting film with content accessible to all while also pushing a sexually progressive and feminist narrative with virtually all of its characters like Aditi, Varun, Ayesha, Ria and Alice. The success with these narratives also comes with the territory of the globalized approach in that it is able to take pieces of culture from the west and India and the complications of each and provide commentary on both which suggests a certain message of trans-nationality with the events that unfold throughout the film as though these experiences are not necessarily indigenous to only one place.

Side notes: Rahul is an impregnable wall when it comes to insults slung at him from Lalit. It was hilarious at first because Rahul seems like such a burnout and can't seem to be responsible for anything even his own safety (injured hand) but by the end I couldn't help but start to feel sort of sorry for him because that literally just was the way he was addressed each time by Lalit, as an idiot.

I also absolutely loved how Nair presented the situations surrounding Varun, Ria, Aliya and Tej. Neither were told to the audience or deliberately shown, they were relatively subtle and arguably your suspicions are then later reaffirmed near the end of the film but the shots that lead up to those resolutions/explanations kept the viewer in suspense to know more about the character developments.

Satya 4-8-16

Gang membership and their family extension is very much at the heart of poverty and gang presence in virtually any urban area. Satya is a film that does this element of gang mentality and existence justice as the main character, Satya, befriends Bhiku in prison and later becomes enrolled in a gang which is as much akin to a family as possible for someone like Satya. The gangster genre of film as a whole, however, does not always represent this underworld with much accuracy and instead draws “on the mythology of the underworld” (Mazumdar 149). Most often these films shy away from genuine realism or focusing on true aspects of the humanity involved in the underworld, but Satya is one of few films that became popular by depicting a gritty, honest image of what the “underworld” looks like and how the people involved get to where they are. As Susan quotes from the director of Satya in an interview, the film is meant to address the human side of the underworld and “why a man picks up the gun.”

The genre itself doesn't seem to contest with the typical trends of popular Hindi cinema so much as exemplify them. Even the most light-hearted Bollywood films we have seen have still tackled serious societal discourse though presenting it often surrounded by other story arcs and scenes that make these criticisms or commentaries more digestible. Satya and others of the same ilk do without any liquids and demands the pill be taken as is. What the genre, if following in the same vein as Satya, does complicate and interrogate is, no pun intended, the truth.

The interest in what people involved in the underworld do in between their hits and other gang related activities that the director projects into the film does exactly what Susan notes in her presentation: it creates a grey area immediately as these otherwise “bad guys” are humanized and are ultimately a product of their environment like Commissioner Amod suggests. And the juxtaposition between communion scenes around the dinner table at police officer's homes to members of the chawl and then with the gang meeting, the film creates an ambiguity around the actions taken by each character to some extent. It is not black and white as Susan mentions. There is no one verifiable bad guy or good guy. Instead, we just have people trying to navigate an unfortunately corrupt and impoverished cityscape from different angles with the network and skills that they know.

When it comes to humanizing the underworld characters, the main character of the film's romance and familial bond with his gang are what represents the ambiguous and realistic depiction of life in poverty within a gang. Firstly, Satya is a person seemingly devoid of emotion or care when we first meet him, admitting to Bhiku that he does not fear death, which we, the viewers, can safely believe is true given that the first 30 minutes of the film involve Satya either beating or getting beaten by someone, going as far as having a gun pointed at him. The first thing to put a smile on this hardened characters face is the friendship between him and Bhiku who then takes Satya under his wing and adopts him into his gang which stands in as his family. From there, we are shown numerous invitations by Bhiku for Satya to come to his home and meet his wife and kids, or the other several occassions of communion between Satya and the rest of the gang members. Professor Ghosh makes note of the scene showing the contrast of windows between Vidya and Satya, with Satya behind bars and Vidya amidst a bushel of greenery and her arms stretching wide which suggests the entrapment that Satya feels by his position later in the film after he finally meets and falls in love with Vidya. With Vidya involved, this is the first time that he has have called in to question his lifestyle either before or during his crime-life. Vidya, the innocent, hardworking neighbor in the chawl is what brings Satya down from his life and seeks a way out but through a series of unfortunate events, he is abandoned by his family and feels obligated to get revenge on the man that disrupted and ended the lives of his gang family.

These experiences that create such a conflicted character out of a previously empty person are a true testament to what poverty does to push people to these extreme positions, what gang community provides for lost or impoverished individuals, and what friendship and love can do to promote change or provide sanctuary. These elements come together and illuminate an otherwise demonized part of society without perpetuating the flashy, glamor of other gangster genre films which often completely skip over the social, human experiences that truly drive these institutions. 

As a general aside: The actor for Satya did not hold my attention well and I couldn't tell if he was just bad at acting or if he was playing a down and out character too well. I will admit that the film becomes more interesting and impressive after thinking and reading about it critically and within real life context.