jueves, 19 de enero de 2017

BHH ON OMKARA - THE BOLLYWOOD OTHELLO



Yes, there is such a thing as a Bollywood Othello, set in our days' Uttar Pradesh. In which the title character is a half-caste regional leader (Omkara Shukla, played by Ajay Devgan) and his right-hand man Cassio is an Anglophone college boy (Keshav, played by Vivek Oberoi) whose cultural level sets him apart from most of the people in the hinterland setting. Desdemona is local lawyer's only daughter Dolly Mishra, also university-educated and Anglophone, and thus kindred spirits with Keshav. And Iago... Iago is Ishwar "Limp" Tyagi, played by Saif Ali Khan: Omi's right-hand man since they've had their posts and now left in the shade of this college boy with little to no experience in regional government.
SPOILER ALERT: Ishwar gets killed by his wife, instead of vice versa, in the ending!!
The story follows the plot of Othello rather close up and putting a deconstructive spin on it, as most Bollywood films do to their source texts, expanding the runtime to three hours (both Shakespeare's and Verdi's are two-hour shows) and adding all of those elaborate musical numbers. Definitely a fresh new spin on the old story...

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