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.