Wrestling with Omkara

(an older piece, somewhat revised.. )

I have always found Maqbool to be the poorest adaptation of Mabeth or indeed an adaptation that almost has nothing to do with Macbeth. Vishal Bharadwaj follows the plots in a skeletal sense but there is little else that is Shakespearean in them. Even ignoring this point I have never found Maqbool a very compelling narrative. Omkara on the other hand is a superior film to Maqbool in every imaginable sense of the word. Admittedly it is Othello about as much as Maqbool was Macbeth but where the director scores is in constructing a marvellous world both by way of the authentic ambience as well as by imbuing his tale with a certain mythic quality. This film works for me even though I do not consider it ‘Othello’ because the tale is compelling as are the performances for the most part. I did however find the narrative a bit too languid at many points. I find it odd that a reader of Shakespeare was unable to translate (this was true of Maqbool as well) the Bard’s incredible economy and precision, both used to great dramatic effect, into filmic language. And the last bit of the film, beginning with Iago’s death, is simply appalling and totally perverts the sense of the play even if it isn’t serious ‘Othello’ to begin with.

However there is a fairy tale quality to the narrative that ultimately makes the Shakespearean resonances less important (even if I cannot be indifferent to these in a purported adaptation). Many scenes that stand out either for cinematographic accomplishment (my favorite one in the entire film is when Tyagi walks away, having pushed his hapless friend into the water, and there is the ‘flattened’ (telephoto?) shot that follows] or for an attention to detail that encapsulates narrative elements [Omkara crushing the sugarcane, suggesting strength but also eerily the eventual death of the Desdemona character) or even scenes with incredible dramatic effect (Langda Tyagi’sintro, an even greater one for me is Dolly’s death, I think this last one is one of the most remarkable sequences in all of Hindi cinema).

The film gives you all of this and yet the narrative is still a diluted one either because the pace is rather languorous at times or because the songs (which though otherwise well done) halt the narrative in some ways. And this is exactly what Shakespeare in not about. Shakespeare’s momentum in both Macbeth and Othello is simply relentless. Furthermore Bharadwaj transposes the plot of the play well for the most part but fails royally in certain key instances. I have mentioned the way the movie ends but Omkara preferring Kesu to Langda is every bit as incredible. Forget the fact that Bharadwaj displays an almost abysmal ignorance of the politics of that region (the only point where he is not authentic at all), even on the terms of his film it is not plausible that a lightweight like Kesu would be preferred over Langda. The reason offered hardly convinces us specially since we’ve never seen Kesu commanding those student legions!

Again Saif is not Iago in any sense and is much more the stock Jacobean villain. I don’t hold this against him as Iago has been a graveyard for many great actors and here it is the director who fails more than Saif the actor. Devgan is good as a charismatic Othello though he doesn’t quite have the acting range to pull it off beyond a point and as a result he seems strangely listless as the film progresses into the second half. Saif has the performance of a lifetime for sure but I somehow did not find it absolutely entrancing. Saif’s Langda does not surprise me at any point in the film once one gets through the first hour. Not his fault perhaps but Iago surprises you at every turn. Also it is always very ambiguous in the play as to what Iago’s intentions really are. No such doubts about Langda Tyagi. So a very good performance for sure and an enduring one but I would for example not put it with Abhishek’s Lallan Singh in terms of either iconic stature or depth of portrayal. Lallan is impenetrable to a great extent but Abhishek the actor still suggests more than Saif does. Another way of saying it is that Saif is more Richard III than he is Iago but again Olivier’s Richard suggests greater depths than Saif’s Iago. The greatest evidence of what I am suggesting here lies in the fact that Saif cannot quite run away with this film even though he is pitted against an inadequate actor like Devgan. Abhishek would actually have made a good Othello. The other performances are generally good as well though Konkana (preferable to Kareena who disappoints here) still does not handle the language adequately enough. The only actor totally inadequate was Vivek Oberoi,even for the Cassio part! For all this Saif does bring about one of the very compelling portrayals in Hindi cinema. But the character works finally in a cartoonish sense, much as the Jacobean villains do, much as Richard III does. Gabbar however is more than this as is Lallan more recently (as well as his Tamil counterpart – Madhavan’s Inba), both ‘hero-villain’ characters of sorts. This shouldn’t take away anything from Saif’s performance as I have never considered him the equal of Abhishek as an actor in any sense (though I do think they would work wonderfully together). And what I criticise him for is more Bharadwaj’s failure than his which is to say that had Bharadwaj been a better reader of Shakespeare Saif would assuredly have come up with a truer Iago. Nonetheless, Saif has truly done something very interesting with this character and this turn is certainly not one that could have been foreseen based on Salaam Namaste or even Ek Hasina Thi. But to me it doesn’t rise above the level of a very compelling performance married to a considerable physical metamorphosis. It is not ‘great’ in my book but very notable.

Having made all of these ‘negative’ observations about the film it might perhaps seem surprising that I liked the film. I actually did and quite a bit. But I do think that Bharadwaj still missed a good chance with this one. The characterisations are good, the cinematography is often impressive (though not especially outstanding), the authenticity in terms of physical setting and attention to detail is almost one to die for. For all my reservations this is an extremely worthy attempt by Bhardwaj not least because the director respects Hindi film codes and has for all his Shakespearean inspiration the desire to create a cinematic landscape that is every bit as rooted as one would want it to be. And I will have to admit that this was true for Maqbool as well. The Omkara ‘mix’ is therefore a seductive one and to the extent that it has given rise to serious reflection it is a success in an even truer sense.


[I am generally rather harsh on most Western literary adaptations for similar reasons. I have for example little patience for Olivier’s film versions barring Richard III and Henry V (these are hard to get wrong!), let alone Kenneth Branagh’s mostly inspid costume pieces. I in fact revisited Welles (Othello) after watching Omkara and this itself (barring the cinematography even if Welles tries to hard to create Gothic effects here!) is a very lifeless version. For all my reservations I would prefer Omkara to Welles! Kurosawa is still light years away from everyone else and to my mind there is no one who can even come close to equalling his achievements in Throne of Blood and Ran. And as my favorite critic Harold Bloom puts it the amazing achievement here is that Kurosawa is as Japanese as ever here and at the same time totally true to Shakespeare. I can’t blame Bhardwaj for not being Kurosawa (!) nor should I blame Saif for not being Olivier (or Lallan in my book).]