tikistitch

So, to reiterate, I know fuck all about Bollywood, and I've been to India for a grand total of two weeks in my entire life. But, I adore musicals, old and new, and instead of waiting 6 years for the American film industry to come up with another Hairspray, I've decided to delve into what Amazon calls "world film."

I got a Blu Ray of Om Shanti Om because I saw it on several "Best" lists, and (like seemingly every Bollywood movie ever) it set records for ticket sales at the time it was out.

I need to summarize the plot because it's so fucking complicated. It starts out in the 70s, and oh does it EVER have fun with sets and costumes and bad, bad, BAD hairdos. Om is a bit player for a major Bollywood studio. Now, Om is played by Shah Rukh Kahn, who is basically Bollywood's combo of Brad Pitt/George Clooney with a touch of Fred Astaire thrown in. He's at least a good decade too old for the role, but, eh, it's a musical. Anyway, he's adorably inept. Om is in love with a big star named Shanti. I wanna get her name right - Deepika Padukone. She's gorgeous, think maybe an Indian Audrey Hepburn, where she can be cute and gorgeous. And, hey, she can act.

And by happenstance, Om rescues Shanti from a fire and gets to take her out. But then it turns out, Shanti is actually in love with, AND MARRIED TO, a producer, Mukesh, who was played by the distractingly hot Arjun Rampal. After I was through drooling over Rampal, I realized that OMG, he's supposed to be EEEEVUL. Unfortunately, Shanti doesn't figure this out until Mukesh murders her in a fire. Om tries to rescue her, but is beaten nearly to death by Mukesh's goons, and THEN hit by a car.

OK, this is where it gets really complicated: Om is hit by a director who is rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital. Om dies, but the director's wife has a son, who they name, guess what, OM.

Flash forward to 30 years later (?) where Om is now played by Shah Rukh Kahn after he's spent several months with a personal trainer. (Oooo, ladies!) Om slowly realizes that he's actually a reincarnation of OM.1, and he later meets the reincarnation of Shanti. Together with Om's old crew, they try to bring Mukesh to justice.

This movie is so overstuffed with happy WTF, I just can't speak. The 70s stuff just goes utterly nuts with the era, and the modern stuff is just as goofy. And I haven't even gotten into the best part: the whole thing is a send up of the Bollywood movie industry. It includes a shit ton of cameos, most of whom I don't recognize. What I do appreciate is snarking about the film industry, which seems about the same everywhere. The video I posted last night is a "dream sequence" in one of the new Om's movies: he's playing a role of a blind, deaf, mute man in a wheelchair with no hands in a hilarious bid to get an Oscar-equivalent, but the egotistical Om decides the picture needs spicing up, so adds a sexy dance number.

The ending number, which is above, is a stunner too. Ignore Arjun Rampal's silly aging makeup (once again, it's a musical): Om is trying to prick Mukesh's conscience by performing Shanti's story (hey, did anyone say, "Hamlet?"). People who thought Moulin Rouge was cool oughta see this shit: or maybe not, they'd faint.

The neat thing is, the movie can do happy goofy slapstick (the new Shanti is a klutz), but it also manages to be seriously and even a little creepy when it needs to be (it's also a ghost story). A big bundle of happy, and I'll be watching this one a lot this winter.