Sunday, August 20, 2006

Mahabharata

I completed reading Rajgopalacharya's version of Mahabharata. His writing style comprises of using simple words, small sentences and compiling them into concise chapters. I came to know about some unheard stories of our great epic through this book. I believe every emotion (desire, greed, love, sincerity et al) , social tensions and other facets of life can be found in this epic. We don't have evidence about who wrote this book (of course, if you don't believe Lord Ganesh who wrote this epic, as our mythology claims) but whoever it is has done a great job.

The thing that makes Ramayana more popular than Mahabharata is that Ramayana is a story of victory of good over evil. Ramayana deals the story in white and black whereas Mahabharat deals its epic in grey. There are times in Mahabharata where it would be difficult for a reader to determine who is right and who is wrong, which makes it more interesting due to its alignment with current practical world.

I would love to see a trilogy made of Mahabharata. It would be much better if a director originating from western culture makes it as he would visualise our mythology in his own way and give a global touch to the movie. I strongly believe our mythology if projected elegantly through proper media channels would become globally popular. Anybody up for it, Peter Jackson, u listening ????

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Omkara !!!

With a quite few weblinks pointing to this blogsite, you have to be an avid reader to reach here. And if you are an avid reader you might have read lots of good reviews of Omkara by now. Let's take a different angle on the movie in this blog i.e. a negative one. Don't get me wrong, I loved the movie a lot and I can go on and on about it. But pointing mistakes is such a satisfying experience :-). Here are the points where I think movie needed improvement.

1) The movie didn't show how saif convinced his wife to steal Omkara's family necklace. The woman, who gets enraged to the extent that she kills her husband for treachery, should have a strong reason to steal the necklace at the first place. I am sure Shakespeare might have explained about her character in detail in Othello but I believe that was not projected properly in the movie.

2) Viveik's roles should have been much stronger instead of being just a casanova.

3) The history of Omkara's association with bhaisaab and saif's (Langda Tyagi) association with Omkara needed more spotlight. Such character and relation development should be given higher priority over songs. Time has come for good directors to get rid of unnecessary songs from their movies. 'Company' scores higher in this aspect of film making.

4) Enemies of Omakara seems to be have given no respect in the movie. The hero is stronger only if he has stronger enemies. I understand that Omkara's enemies do not need to have much scope in the movie but their history would have helped in understanding the scenario better.

Overall the movie is a must-see one this year.
Rating: 4.5 / 5.0