Bollywood - 1

Exhausting & Awesome - Two contrasting Bollywood movies

Rediff review - KANK is an exhausting watch:
I feel older. A showing of Karan Johar's mammoth 22-reel Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna has left me unbelievably exhausted. I walk out of the hall feeling my cheeks for stubble, wondering if my clothes are suddenly dated and my hair's grey. For this is no ordinary 3.5-hour film. It is a saga that stretches on and on -- imagine, if you will, a Balaji Telefilms soap running for several seasons, time leaps and all. Yes, I've lost a sizeable chunk of my life, and you will too.

and ends...

"Damn, it still hurts. Think it'll take a couple more viewings of another film with a limping leading man to soothe the pain."

The film that blew (the reviewer's) mind being Omkara (official site), based on Othello, a great movie directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, director of Maqbool (which I have not seen but was based on Macbeth, it seems)...

Amit Varma blogs about the movie and refers us to a good review of Omkara by Baradwaj Rangan and also Jai Arjun Singh's raving blog post praising the movie, although apparently Falstaff is most unimpressed with Omkara.

Also, read an interview with the director, Vishal Bharadwaj, who started in Hindi movies as a music composer but after seeing the great acclaimed Polish director & Master of Cinema, Krysztof Kieslowski's Dekalog was inspired into making films.