Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Om Shanti Om- What the Fish?!
19 Plays17 days ago
That's Bollywood, baby! Our first episode from Bollywood and we picked a real gem. This movie has so much stuff in it, you really can't believe it. Stunning work from a team of designers that show you that yes the 70's had all the colors, and yes 2007 does too. And the SUNGLASSES!
Special guest on the episode- Aida the cat makes several contributions. Because we uplift women's voices here.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1024943/?ref_=ttmi_ov
https://www.eastman.org/node/6721
https://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/features/15-years-om-shanti-om-authenticitys-sake-farah-khan-asked-revealing-clothes-background-dancers-rebelled-farah-upset-not-going-get-h/
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Hot Set Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode with us, your giggling gals, you your bubbly besties. and ah Do I feel insane?
First Bollywood Experience and Om Shanti Om
00:00:32
Speaker
Of course I do. Because today, ah the curtain has come up on Melinda's first experience with Bollywood.
00:00:40
Speaker
And we just watched Om Shanti Om starring Topeka Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan. And I am so excited to get into this one. a Quick summary.
00:00:52
Speaker
In the 1970s, Om, an inspiring actor, is murdered but is immediately reincarnated into the present day. He attempts to discover the mystery of his demise and find Shanti, the love of his previous life, which is a very yeah that's very compact very compact. And this was also my first experience in Bollywood a long minute ago. I think the movie was only like...
00:01:17
Speaker
a year old when we saw it. Cool. It like blew our minds. Cause we had no idea a, that this was a three, almost a three hour film.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah. um And we had no idea what the plot was. It was just like a friend of mine said like, Oh, you guys might enjoy this. You should watch it. Cause you like movies. And then we were like, okay, we could, we watched like the first half in a tent on the mountain.
00:01:42
Speaker
And then the second half, I think, I don't remember where the second half was, but we were both like, uh, Yeah. yeah ah We need to know more about this.
Discussion on Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone
00:01:52
Speaker
Shah Rukh Khan um shot up to being like one of our favorite actors, like our favorite Bollywood actors pretty quick.
00:01:59
Speaker
Because he's he's very charming and like he's he's very good at doing so many different kinds of roles, but like one that we we, meaning me and my husband Phil, have seen a lot is that he plays like a silly guy and then he has depth. Yeah, yeah.
00:02:15
Speaker
And... I love all the cat noises in the background for the audience at home. Aida is violating film now. If anyone is what that is, yeah leaving we're leaving it in and it is cat sounds. Yeah, that is 100% Aida saying, hey, hey, give me what I want.
00:02:33
Speaker
so So this is one of Deepika Padukone's first films. It's, I think, her third credit on IMDb. And I think there's a music video and then another movie and then this.
00:02:45
Speaker
So in her credits, it says introducing to Pika Padukone. And so she was like 21 at the time. She's a year older than you and I. a little baby. little wee baby.
00:02:56
Speaker
And I just... Crazy. so How do we want to, well, first I have a note. I have noted in my notes. Yeah.
00:03:08
Speaker
What I wanted to say at the top was what the fish to you and a very what the fish to me as well. And then um yeah all the hot girls, please put your hands up and say, om shanty om. If you're ugly, maybe sit this one out.
00:03:20
Speaker
Oh my God. That's nice. You love it when the movie just tells you front what to do. Just not you. know You're not invited. So this movie, like when we first saw it, I did not understand how big this movie
Iconic Dance Numbers and Bollywood's Grand Scale
00:03:39
Speaker
is. Right.
00:03:40
Speaker
budget wise reference wise um cameo wise like you can recognize in one of the numbers towards the middle of the film do you want you want to do you want to that there's like a bunch of bollywood stars and you can recognize that because it's an after party for like an award ceremony yeah so contextually it makes sense and it makes sense because there are actors of many ages who are clearly not a part of the vibe um Yeah, it's like they're just like, yeah, let's dance.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's like if we had ah a movie scene at like the Oscars after party. Yeah, which is now insane to think about that, like the amount of massive stars that they had.
00:04:25
Speaker
to do a dance number and then to do some bits before the award show. So I did not know these actors because this was my first Bollywood. Now I do know yeah a handful of these actors.
00:04:36
Speaker
And so the bits are super funny. There's one bit at the award show. Yes, I'm going to bounce around for a minute because I'm excited. But there's a bit at the award show in part two.
00:04:50
Speaker
and we'll talk about the breakdown in a second with Abhishek Bachchan, which is about like Doom 5, where he gets off of a motorcycle and they're, you know, announcing the nominees to win this movie award.
00:05:02
Speaker
And he like turns around and he's in slow-mo kind of taking off his sunglasses and like the voice announcers like introducing Abhishek Bachchan Doom 5. If you've seen any of the Doom movies, you would know how funny that is because there are so many and they're, they're always about a cop who's getting up to some stuff except for one of the Doom movies.
00:05:27
Speaker
Okay. Okay. but you have to look ah some of the doom dance numbers because critic rishan who's also a cameo at the beginning of this award show is in one of the doom movies abhishek bachan is in i believe number one and another and like maybe make some cameos i can't quite remember right now but like It's hard you're giving me so much homework when all of these movies are like three hours long. you know I want you to YouTube dance numbers. okay
00:05:59
Speaker
You can jump into movies, but definitely just seeing some of these dance numbers will will be a great. But one of the dooms we saw in theaters, and it was one with Amir Khan, where he plays himself and his twin with special needs. And they are magicians a who prestige everyone. Oh, wow.
00:06:20
Speaker
Okay. And um so like, they're crime, crime magicians. And there's a scene. Aren't they all like, there's a scene where he's riding a motorcycle to get away from cops.
00:06:35
Speaker
And he's riding it vertically up. a and No, he's riding it vertically down a building. So I want you to understand and how big these movies get. And so that I can say this.
00:06:46
Speaker
Dipika Padukone made like a U.S. debut a couple years back in a friggin... triple X movie. me Okay. Okay. So she's like 10 seconds away from being in the next fast and the furious. She should be in a fast and furious, honestly, yeah but she was in triple X. I think the return of Sandra cage, which I mentioned the doom moment because like, this is all over the place, but it is leading somewhere because like, it makes a sense as like a transition because there's a scene at the beginning of that triple X movie where Vin Diesel is like,
00:07:24
Speaker
is Skiing or snowboarding down like a tower yeah and then like goes down this mountain and like it turns into like a water motorcycle.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah. I don't understand. so wow crazy the The last Fast and Furious movie ends with him driving a car down a dam. like What is the difference between driving a motorcycle down a building and driving a classic muscle car down a dam vertically? I feel like i feel like you know we we may not be covering any Vin Diesel stuff. I personally don't care for Vin Diesel. Fast and Furious, I think, is something for everyone.
00:08:07
Speaker
And it also has a lot of space for a lot of deep conversation about men's opinions about toxic masculinity and what women are capable
Cultural Use of Color in Films
00:08:15
Speaker
of. Let me talk about costumes because like there's four. like There's four costumes in that movie. It's not really one that we need to talk about. But I do think that Vin Diesel and everybody who makes those understand international cinema.
00:08:29
Speaker
They do. They understand global stardom. Global stardom and like getting your bang for your buck. and so It was nice to come back and see the Pika Patakone in this this film and to see her play these two characters because she plays two characters as does ah Shah Rukon because this is a reincarnation story. Part one, I'm going to refer to as Om or Omi.
00:08:56
Speaker
And then part two is OK because the character has the same name, which is Om. yeah But the first Om is a different man than the second one because he is murdered and then he is born again first part there's one om and then he dies and he's born the same night that a famous movie producer ah and his wife are giving birth and so he's immediately reborn yeah as this new infant who's also named om and i think he might be named om because of the guy who died yeah because the producer hits him with his car right that doesn't kill him but it's like after this massive explosion and his like he's been beat like all these things and he's landed in a roadway and stands up and gets like tapped by a car and the people driving that it's this couple on their way to the hospital.
00:09:51
Speaker
And I, he finds out after his son is born that this man has died. And I think it kind of breaks his heart. And so he might name his son. And he's much better, like he's set up in a much better position to be a movie star the second time around by being like born as like the kid of people who are already in the movie industry. And oh this is a house that they've already had a number talking about. So, yeah okay.
00:10:17
Speaker
So Om is this like... very bright spirited young guy with his friend um Papu and like ah Om's mom. We see a lot of them in the seventies and Om is obsessed with this actress named Shanti Priya. Shanti Priya.
00:10:37
Speaker
And she's like his dream girl. Like she's this massive celebrity. Literally. Literally. Literally his dream girl. In a movie called Dreamy Girl. Yes. And so there's this giant um billboard of her like for an advertisement for that movie that he like will walk over to and just like have conversations with and people know about it.
00:10:57
Speaker
yeah And then he goes to a movie premiere and he meets her. Yeah. He meets her because he like dreams himself into this film dance sequence. And then he like becomes the star that she's dancing with.
00:11:10
Speaker
And he like stands up out of his seat and starts like, you know, just getting crazy. And they've like, it's, ah We have to talk about his outfit that he wears to the movie premiere. we have to talk about all of the 70s. Yeah. Like the 70s stuff in the movie is so good. It's so good. I feel like from the, from US s cinema that I'm used to we get two different versions of the 70s. And I feel like recent, in recent years, we've been getting interesting versions of the 80s and the 70s.
00:11:41
Speaker
Because people are trying to be accurate, but they're actually with digital cameras, we're able to pick up more nuance in like textures and patterns and colors. So it doesn't feel so washed out as it normally does.
00:11:55
Speaker
And with 70s stuff, when I was growing up, I always hated 70s color palettes and 70s clothes because immediately it just was like li polyester and like avocado and carrot and taupe and tan and brown.
00:12:08
Speaker
And now I'm all about it. Like, but this is not that like, me when I close my eyes, I get a very, like, there's a color palette for the seventies for me. And that's part of earth it's earthy.
00:12:22
Speaker
And then you get like disco and you get like ABBA, you know, you get like certain stuff. but this version of the 70s is so bright and saturated and like colorful like a whole box crayola crayons oh my god and like sequins like it has all of it and like papu has this shirt a rainbow shirt the rainbow shirt with like blocks and it has two lines of ruffle trim sewn like at the kind of like bust line like a tuxedo shirt ruffles ruffle front that are like baby pink or at least like they're in the pink family and it is like such a
00:13:09
Speaker
it's not a choice right would normally see. And I frigging love it And like, we have so many different collar widths and like lapels going on. Many pairs of like white pants white in tight white bell bottoms.
00:13:29
Speaker
I think what I love so much about it, like you said, like, you know, we're getting more variety of like what the 70s maybe actually looked like, but there's something about seeing stuff that you recognize through the lens of a different culture and what they're attracted to and what they see and what they like and how they take things and like, put their own like creative spin on it. And that I think is what makes it so delightful it's so awesome because like we briefly talked about in the last episode like in western culture and in eastern cultures like every culture has a different approach and appreciation of color like colors mean different things to people and we're not going to talk about color symbolism i don't yeah at least i'm not that but it's just like the appreciation of color is very different which is why when i think of the 70s in like new york or san francisco i think of
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, there was color, there was pattern, there was all of those things. But somehow, I go to like brick red, yeah instead of bright red, i go to like navy instead of turquoise. And yet, I had a turquoise jacket from my great aunt from the 70s, you know, like, all that existed.
00:14:45
Speaker
but it was like more... when you would see like group numbers, let's say, like if we had a group number Saturday night fever, think of that. It would be a lot of ecru white, black, brown, like just more solid kind of stately. It's very graphic. Like, yeah.
00:15:04
Speaker
Or yeah like more restrained, more monochromatic or something. That's a perfect way to say it. And like here, when you see a group of people, it's like,
00:15:16
Speaker
every color that you think of and it's most like pure primary form is just like here. And there's so much because so much of the movie takes place on film sets and in like studio backlots. So there's just people like milling around for huge portions of this movie.
00:15:37
Speaker
And they're all in, like everybody has something interesting on, like, it's not like, Oh, we kind of want everyone to, fade into the background so everyone's in like tans and oh no even even in uh there's like a film shoot that they're doing ah right before a a bunch of hay bales catch fire and everybody is supposed to be not like um city teenagers you know they're supposed to be like out in the country And there's still color going on.
00:16:06
Speaker
And like, by the way, that scene, i don't know if you read this in an article, but to Pika Patakone's character, Shanti Pria is like, they're filming her surrounded by all this hay and the hay is being set on fire and they're supposed to get a good action shot.
00:16:21
Speaker
But so the fire picks up. And so it starts to turn very quickly. And she's like screaming for help. And the director's like, keep going, keep going. Everybody's like, oh, this is bad news. And Shah Rukh Khan's character, Om, jumps in and saves her.
00:16:33
Speaker
That actually happened in a film called Mother India. And that was from 1957. The two actors that this actually happened to fell in love, got married. right And their son actually shows up in the Dwanagi scene later because he's a famous actor.
00:16:52
Speaker
And I loved that like the, so like ah this incarnation of Om like wants to be an actor, but he's sort of like,
00:17:03
Speaker
in this sort of like background or like ensemble or, like you know, like he's, he's not like a principal character. Like he's and he's eating the scenery. He's like, just like seeing of the camera like drag queen, like drag ways.
00:17:20
Speaker
my God.
Om Shanti Om's Themes and Tropes
00:17:23
Speaker
Whipping his hair. But like, I love that the actual like actor who's supposed to be like the hero of that movie, they're like, okay, he's, here's your moment, like jump in and like save her. And he's like, um, I that fire is pretty big.
00:17:40
Speaker
That feels like a real fire. don't, I can do that. I'm going to catch you later. Like just, I love the, um, I mean like there's, there's so much like reference and parody in this movie that I simply don't have the background understand. like that, um,
00:17:58
Speaker
that concept of like the guy who's supposed to be like the heroic male lead, actually not being very brave is I think like a universal trope that we can all recognize. And like, we can all enjoy it. Yeah. I just like to go back to like the color palette of all of these costumes.
00:18:16
Speaker
It feels like such a great set up. for who the character is and his his um version of the world because it feels like we're seeing things through his pov and he's just very positive and it's not like he's wealthy he's not you know he doesn't have access to certain things like he has to lie to get into this movie premiere to see his like star of his dreams wannabe girl yeah And like saving her life then elevates him a little bit further because he convinces her that he's a Tamil, I think it's a meal like actor. And which is like, and she's like, Oh my God. Okay.
00:18:53
Speaker
And then like tries to help him get some like bit parts. yeah And um they kind of become friends. Like he's in love with her in this like idealized way. But they like get to have these like very special moments.
00:19:04
Speaker
And everything it's just so bright. And like, it just feels like that's who he is. It's just this bright person so that when he finds out that, um,
00:19:18
Speaker
Shantipriya is actually secretly married to the movie's producer, um who's a real drag, Mukesh. He is like snuck into this like back area of a dressing room and he overhears this argument and um he overhears this like secret and like announcement that um shantypria is pregnant and and all of a sudden mukesh turns and is like oh my god that's amazing and um yeah then after he finds that out and he's talking to shantypria's billboard he's like don't talk to me and he's wearing black
00:19:57
Speaker
that's so dramatic and then his friend papu comes over in white and it feels like because papu also has like really bright colors and we get to see him re-wear shirt a couple times yeah and like but it feels like he's like in mourning too for his friend you know and it's like he's like yeah we'll both we'll both be sad about this i'm just like it's so dramatic because like It just like it means something for him to be in black and be like sad about it because the rest of the time we see him unless he's in costume as a background character.
00:20:30
Speaker
He's wearing such bright stuff and he's just like there is this like recurring theme of his costumes being this like black and red and like color scheme that I kept like noticing and I thought it was wasn't really sure if there was like you know, I'm like, there obviously could be some kind of like cultural context that I'm, I'm not getting, but like when we, when he's at the movie premiere as like, you know,
00:20:58
Speaker
ah fan he's in this like plaid suit it's like black and red and like shades of gray and like some white and he talks about like he rented it and then um when he is like starting to get some like movie parts he's this like black and red leather cowboy He is like a black and red superhero in like a muscle suit. Which we'll talk about when we get there.
00:21:28
Speaker
There's this like theme of black and red. It keeps coming back. Yeah, but it's like, it's not exclusive. Like you said, he does wear a lot of colors. He does. i don't know what it was. Yeah, which I think is what made it even like kind of funnier to me that they have him in just the black for that like little morning moment because yeah it really does elevate it with the red because also with all of his shirts, they have like these massive collars that, you know, like they're big deals.
00:21:52
Speaker
And there's there is this, okay, we have to work to one of my favorite collars. So... but so Om overhears this this truth. He mourns at the billboard. And then like we're moving in and out of a lot of different things because there's filming happening while this is happening. so he's wearing like really campy outfits. And then he's wearing like the bright 70s.
00:22:13
Speaker
And then we get to this scene where... He's hiding on the Om Shanti Om set and this is coming to the the close of part one with Om. Yeah. Because there's a movie, don't don't get confused, there's movie within the called Om Shanti Om. In the movie called Om Shanti Om and also the characters' names are Om and Shanti. don't I mean, it's very simple. okay yeah like I didn't have any trouble keeping it all straight. Keep up, damn. I didn't struggle at all. problem. No problem. So like Om is hiding on this set and Mukesh, the evil producer is bringing Shanti Priya onto the set for like, to show like, this is where we're going to have our wedding ceremony where we're going announce, you know, if we're going a real, we're not going to hide you anymore. And, um, it's this like beautiful, like, it kind of reminds me of like a seventies TV show, like a Dallas kind of situation. Cause there's a grand staircase and like, it's like a ballroom. Yeah. And, um,
00:23:12
Speaker
He like turns on the lights and does all this. And I skipped over something big. We can hop back. But anyway, ah while Oma's hiding, he's wearing this shirt and jacket. It's like, is it like a blue shirt with like a white jacket?
00:23:30
Speaker
And the collar... ooh The collar goes from his neck from the neck stand, like to his shoulder points almost right like like five or six inches. It's long so big. and the thing that I love about it is that it's not floppy.
00:23:51
Speaker
Oh, no. You would think that that would have a lot of airspace, but like because the jacket and the shirt are together, I feel like it's able to lay nicely. Supporting it. You've got to imagine. like I don't know if people know, but vintage shirts and some of those, they had this plastic piece inside that kept the fabric taut and gave it that point. That's what they were. They gave it that point. Yeah.
00:24:19
Speaker
you would take it out when you were like laundering the shirt and like put it back. But like, if you, if you like look at vintage clothing, like you can find them, they have like this channel, like sewn down. They do sell shirts like that still, but it's not like, I don't think it's not every shirt though. I know.
00:24:38
Speaker
Cause people just take it out and think that it's like just a plastic thing hack for display. Yeah. like But it's like, no, it's actually there. So that you have sharp points, perfect, crisp point. Yeah. It is such an amazing outfit. And what I skipped over, which I want to go back to very quick, is that there's like this kind of like singing in the rain moment in one of the film sets, which has like a gazebo film set, where Om, it's like a romantic declaration of love. And Shanti is like...
00:25:08
Speaker
giving him that and like i think seeing that but it's before om finds out that she's actually married to this yeah it's like they're they're not on the same page like he thinks like oh my god we're falling in love everything is so amazing and she's like oh look at this sweet guy who's being nice to me she thinks that he's very sweet and i think that like in other conditions perhaps but she has a whole life that he doesn't know about that's secret And um that's like part of the tragedy is that he's able to see all the best of her.
00:25:38
Speaker
And she kind of loves that and like loves how sweet he is and how he's not tarnished. Like his worldview has not been tarnished the way that hers has been darkened. Not cynical. yeah oh Yeah. And that like makes it even sadder when after the major points scene. Oh, but like the gazebo scene, sorry, God, I'm such a mess.
00:25:59
Speaker
But the gazebo scene there Papu is like helping Om introduce this area to Shanti. yeah And Papu has this like sweet little shirt that has sky blue piping like trim.
00:26:14
Speaker
And Om is wearing... this like periwinkle blue, and then Shanti has like blue as well. So they're all tied in. And then the set has like this evening lighting so that it's very blue. Beautiful, like little touches of like purple, yeah a little warm light moment. Oh god.
00:26:32
Speaker
there are color is just like so important and not like necessarily what it represents, but just how it ties together and how it moves is so important in this movie. yeah and like in um Before we close out scene one, I totally like...
00:26:49
Speaker
Skipped over Doomtana, which is the the dance scene that like I referred to. my God. Where Om gets like sucked into it in the movie premiere and he like gets so into it and envisioning himself as the male lead that he like starts dancing in the aisles.
00:27:04
Speaker
It's this tour of famous Bollywood movies where the Pika Patakone has been digitally inserted into old movies and then they've reproduced like the dance numbers with modern dancers and stuff to like make it look like it's the old stuff to make it look like Shah Rukh Khan is also in there. Yeah. And they just have these like, we have like a pirate scene. oh my God. The pirate scene was my favorite. I love it so much. We have this like, and the pirate scene is so great too, because like, okay, Shah Rukh Khan is dressed
00:27:39
Speaker
the way that the original male leaders dress, which is like a pirate shirt, yeah a red bandana, the black, you know, black black and red pants, the black and red. yeah And he's got the boots. And then Deepika and all the women dancers are wearing these like blinged out, like sequin. Yeah. Like black, like two piece, two piece. But like the the bottom part is like shorts, scarves,
00:28:04
Speaker
And then scarves with like coins on them or something. It's like, yeah, it's just like every color. Yeah. They're like rainbow colored scarves. They're so bright. Like there's like lime in there, you know, and like gold and it's just so colorful. And like the dances are just so great too. And then there's a number that's like a 50s, like kind of Vegas,
00:28:26
Speaker
like hit like throw towards like an Elvis Vegas-y kind of feeling yeah and like showgirl they're playing badminton I think at one point yeah which is also a cut ah I don't know if it's a reference to a movie but Topeka Padukone is one of her parents is like a badminton celebrity and so like i love the badminton because they're all like pink and purple yeah purple and like green like minty green and it's and very like easter-y kind of but without like so many pinks and yellows it's the it's the cooler colors that are leading yeah and it's just like there are all these numbers one after the other and they're just so much fun because there's so many bodies there's so many people
00:29:07
Speaker
And they had to match original pieces. And so like, I don't know. a History. Yeah. Like it was one of those things like watching it. Obviously, i haven't seen those movies. So like, I don't know specifically what they're like, what movies they're referencing. But like, even as someone who didn't.
00:29:28
Speaker
have like a lot of context for this movie you could tell that that's what it was like even if you're like i don't know what movie that is that this pirate scene is from but i know that we're referencing the history of bollywood and like how movies have like progressed and like changed like over the decades so it's like i feel like it's it's so well done in a sense that like I don't need to have all the context to still enjoy the movie. Obviously I'm not going to enjoy it in the same way. Yeah.
00:30:00
Speaker
Because it's, it's not going to be like, Oh my God, my childhood in this. And it feels like a love letter to like cinema. And, but it also serves the purpose of grounding Shanti as being a massive celebrity and then like grounding Om as a fan boy. Yeah. And, um and like, I just, oh, Doomtana is like, I, I, that's one of those songs that I'll put on when we're driving. If I need to be like in a good mood, don't put me there.
00:30:28
Speaker
And, um but there's just like, one of the reasons why I suggested this movie is because there are so many big yeah scenes with so many like extras and not only extras, but like this scene,
00:30:42
Speaker
setup has to be completely different from this setup and having like, you know, in one dance number, like 30 different looks, you know? Right. And it's just like, boom, boom, boom. You're like moving through them. But I i have to say like, ah skipping around the very beginning of the movie, when it like opens on like the studio back a lot, it looked like,
00:31:04
Speaker
I felt like they filmed it at the like entrance at California Adventure. yeah Like it looks like this idealized nineteen thirty s film studio that like never really existed and certainly doesn't exist like now, like in America. Yeah. Like it's just like the,
00:31:25
Speaker
the fantasy of the film industry is like i feel like present in like a lot of this it's just like yeah it's very majesty and like yeah it's like it's very you can totally recognize it you can recognize it as seeing like a backlot like on a tv show you know where it's like a reference to backlots and having like tours while the backlot is happening except that there's no tour in this because it's not that time. Yeah, it's not that. They're just making movies. Yeah, they're just making movies.
00:31:54
Speaker
But like, I just this and we haven't like skipped, skipped we've we have a little but we're still in the first part of the first half of the movie. And like, I just this is just such like a a joyful idea of what the 70s is. And when I say idea, we'll get back to that because in the second half, there's a 70s throwback. Yeah.
00:32:18
Speaker
And it's very interesting because this feels like it's the 70s. It feels like this is what this was. And it it doesn't have to be like 100% historically accurate. Like there's somebody who walks up while papu is talking to om about his name if he becomes a celebrity he's like you can't keep that last name or whatever you know he's like that'll hold you back and he like calls somebody over the guy that they call over is wearing glasses that are like so 2006 there's a lot of very anachronistic sunglasses in particular in this yeah movie where i was like i feel like this has to be intentional where they're just like it's fine it's fine Because it's it's a dream. Like it's it's not a dream. It's that's not part of the story, but it's like a dream of
Fashion and Anachronisms in Bollywood
00:32:59
Speaker
the 70s. Yes.
00:33:00
Speaker
But it's also a grounded dream of the 70s because everything that you see, there is anachronism, but it like it fits. You can let it fit. And because everything is just so bright that you're like, keep coming at my eyeballs. Yeah.
00:33:14
Speaker
And I think they they give themselves leeway by constantly reminding us that this is a movie. like there So it's like... I think with, with comedy in particular, people are more um willing to take like anachronistic stuff, even when it is extremely intentional in other genres, people will, I think be more critical, but in comedy, there's this, this like, yeah whatever ah kind of attitude. And it's like, it's so funny. Cause it is so silly until it's not. And like, I just, and it also, you, you allow it because so much is happening on film set.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah, or like backlot. So you're like, yeah, it makes sense that things would be elevated, because they're being used for movies. And like, even movies that are our references were like, yeah, people weren't necessarily wearing that regularly. Right. it was put together for a character so we understand those things visually without like having to think about it deeply and um so we're kind of just like able to visually like have fun in this sort stuff yeah and then we go back to om hiding on the set of om shanti om and mikesh mikesh is um
00:34:29
Speaker
ah revealing to shanti that he's a real rat bastard like uh when he's done the turnabout in the dressing room when she reveals that she's pregnant she's wearing this gorgeous like dress that has this like silk green skirt that's like acid green and i love that so much and her nails ah Shanti's nails are painted possibly red to match the red in the dress but it comes out as orange possibly because of color tinting maybe it was orange but maybe it's also like an orange red that kind of ties with the orange in the room but I loved it so much that room is also just like that room is the stereotype of like 70s oh it's like the wallpaper it's it's an interesting thing because it's part of the set but it's like the dressing rooms that are built into the set so it's very theatrical but it also has a lot of art nouveau like in the hallway on the way to the dressing room and then it's like loud 70s like the shining rug kind of pattern happening with like yeah reds and browns
00:35:33
Speaker
I also just like love that it's like, obviously, there's an entire building that is just for different makeup rooms to get makeup on. And I'm like, I don't know if that's obvious to me as someone who's not like,
00:35:46
Speaker
familiar with Bollywood, but i I go with you on that journey. But it was just like, obviously, she's going to the makeup building. And I'm like, I don't know that. But I believe you that that's real. Because we're like trailers.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's what happens. And like, I, I've seen trailers, but I haven't been on a lot that is like this. Yeah, no, I have this kind of setup. This feels like maybe old Hollywood, very and like golden Hollywood.
00:36:15
Speaker
There is a lot of stuff in the movie that just like the way that people like refer to themselves, like the the first incarnation. ju Yeah, he keeps calling himself a junior artist. And it's like, everybody knows what that is, because it's like this sort of regulated, like studio system is like the feeling that they're still like, you know, he's like, I want to be a hero. And it's like, that's different than movie star because it implies what type of character you're playing in the movie, not just that you're famous. Which is interesting because the actor who plays Mukesh, our villain, who never, ever, ever has a good turn. He's just bad.
00:36:55
Speaker
The actor is a model. This, I think, was they convinced him to act in this, but his career was in modeling. And he was reticent because he was like, but he never...
00:37:07
Speaker
He's so bad. Has a good turn. So he was like, I don't know. and so it's like interesting seeing that approach, right? Of like, but I don't want to be a bad person or to be received as like a bad person. So when people identify that with my face, I'm a bad guy. Like right I, the conversation just feels slightly different here. Like the intention is slightly different of the, it's not typecasting. It's like the actual impact is like, they're going to think I'm this bad guy. And so, yeah, it's like, as a, as a model, he was like, I, I want to be a hero.
00:37:44
Speaker
don't want to be the villain. Yeah. Yeah. um And people do we do that. We do have, like, obviously there's people in our film industry that kind of do that, but I feel like it's just less um talked about or less explicit. But it's like, you're not just... think it's the talked about part. Yeah, it's the talked about. It's the openness of everyone understanding what we're doing. Like, you're never going to see a movie where Tom Cruise plays the evil guy, like, now. That's never happening again. He's not going to do that.
00:38:13
Speaker
I think for a lot of people, too, the first time that they might have heard this kind of conversation and was ah when bringing back to Vin Diesel ah in a Fast the Furious with The Rock.
00:38:26
Speaker
And then again with Jason Statham, it was like contractual that neither could win. over the other. So neither could lose to the other to make them look weak.
00:38:38
Speaker
And people heard about that and were like, sorry, what? What the actual what hell are you talking about So I love that in this movie, we see it through Om's eyes, like my goal is to be a hero and to like do this. And we're just seeing this like optimistic dream that he's like aiming towards.
00:38:56
Speaker
And to jump back to the the end of this part with his giant collar that does not save anybody's life, RIP, there's another lapel that's like amazing. And it's Mukesh's leather jacket. God.
00:39:14
Speaker
like but lapel that just is like so perfect for i'm a villain in the and it's like the perfect like i mean because he he wears all black he's too cool for colors clearly and that's also how we know he's bad but like that leather jacket is such a thing from the 70s and it's so your staple leather jacket yes And um in this scene, ah we have another, so Mukesh is in all black. And then we have Shantipriya is in black and red, right? She's got the roses in her hair. And then so yeah she's got like diamond, like diamantes.
00:39:56
Speaker
Right. have like embroidery with the red as well i think i think so like there's a lot going on but it's like a very pulled together color and so it ties her with every other time we've seen and every other time we will see om in black and red it's like their destinies are tied together um but like ah heartbreaking because mukesh lights it all on fire and locks shanty priya in the studio it's like her so then he's gonna marry someone else whose dad owns a film studio yes and the dad is going to give him a film studio as dowry to marry this woman so he's like
00:40:39
Speaker
uh jk shanty priya actually we're not really married i was just kooky kidding was taking advantage of you yeah and so now i'm gonna kill you and our you know like fetus that you have and yeah that was so dark so dark and om has made it outside and he's like leaving because he's like oh they're having their happy ending so he doesn't quite hear the full argument and he then is able to see mukesh leave and everything's on fire inside but it's like soundproofed and he can see shanti trying to break through the glass of the door and he can see her screaming and crying and he can see mukesh just being like
00:41:21
Speaker
piece and so he tries to break through the glass and then mukesh is like henchmen goons beat the ever-loving crap out of him and then he keeps trying and like they leave him for dead i guess and he like is able to break in and go in and they have this long scene with fire and there's a lot of special effects in this movie that are very lovingly shot and part of that is because the special effects company is shahru khan's special effects company And um he was one of the producers of the film. Yeah. yeah He's on fire a couple times in this movie to be like, really see what I can do.
00:41:58
Speaker
credits. You can literally see thrills. And he's like, that's me. ah love it. Yeah. So he tries and fails to save Shanti because something explodes and it like propels him almost comedically, but it's not funny, like out of a window and blows him down a hillside and he rolls down the hill and is hit by the car, which is being driven by, as we mentioned before, um this film producer.
00:42:29
Speaker
yeah And his wife. And they are going to be his parents. And we saw Papu and Om in front of their house giving this, like, in the future when I win an award, this is what I'm going to... This is what I'm going to say. That was his house. I forgot it was the same.
00:42:49
Speaker
So or like I didn't realize that. Yeah. So in the first part, we see all of these dreams laid out, right? Where he's like, I'm going to live in that house someday. I'm going to be a big film producer. And after having been an actor and I'm going to win this award and I'm going to fall in love with this like beautiful actress and have all these things. And he is born the same night that he dies. And in this reincarnation is the son of a film producer. And he is able to have everything and all the money that he couldn't have in that original life.
00:43:22
Speaker
yeah And he is given all of these roles and he becomes a movie star and he achieves his dreams. And that is how we are like, what, 30 some odd years later in part two. Yeah.
00:43:36
Speaker
And it's like, yeah Like, we understand that those things have happened, but it kind of, like, jumps forward to him being, like, an adult who's successful. He doesn't, so far, doesn't really seem to remember. Like, you know, he's not Yeah, he doesn't remember at all.
00:43:55
Speaker
And so... like as we go through the second half of the movie, it's like revelations, like we as the audience know what happened, but like his character is have is like catching up to what we know. has and there's like little things happening, like his mother from his first life.
00:44:13
Speaker
sees him and it's like, I've been waiting for you. Where did you go? And at the end of the first part, when Om has died, the movie prisoner, I think it's Raj Kapoor who becomes okay. He's dad.
00:44:24
Speaker
um He's like, he's the one who like tapped him with his car. he's like, Oh my God, what about his family? All of these things. And his assistant is like, I'll take care of everything. Yeah. And we find out throughout the second part that his assistant hid his body, like basically hid what happened to him. So he just disappeared.
00:44:46
Speaker
And we find out for the second part of the movie. Yes, it is. And so like his mother from his first life is just destroyed and sees everything. Him. Okay. his His name is also Om, but his nickname is okay for Om Kapoor.
00:45:02
Speaker
And um he like is just a spoiled brat of a man. is so cartoonishly spoiled. And he constantly says, what the fish?
00:45:16
Speaker
I know. I'm all. She wants that fish. So this is okay. So we have passed like 30 some odd years. So we are in present day. This movie came out in 2007. So we can assume safely 2006, right? And it is aggressively 2006. Melinda, this is so painful. So we graduated.
00:45:39
Speaker
ah five. yeah So I left high school in 04. So this is high school era. This is early. This is late teens. We remember.
00:45:51
Speaker
And some of this has returned and it is unfortunate. It is like it is like cursed imagery to see some this. This is like Volcom, like Mossimo. my god. Just like bejeweled back pockets on jeans and like sandblasted to the point where like in front of the like, you' like the quad area of the jeans are like white. Sandblasted, like ripped up, bell bottoms, boot cut.
00:46:20
Speaker
there's and not but there's There's a moment where ah the character Sandy, who we we will eventually introduce, um but I want to skip forward. She's wearing garment that I can't even explain because it's like if a tank top didn't do anything. like it's but She's wearing this thing that is, it's like fitted ah around the hip.
00:46:46
Speaker
And it has two sleeves. And then it like scoops and it's like two different pieces. Like I can't even explain this garment. But it's like if a shirt didn't do any of the things that a shirt is supposed to do. Yeah, where it's just what you're looking at. And it's no purpose. It's just... It's just decorative. Like you have to wear another shirt because it doesn't cover any part of your torso. it is so... Like every...
00:47:10
Speaker
a
00:47:13
Speaker
It sent me back to feeling like a teenager. And like yeah I was like, well done, because you flip and nailed it. like Now it looks caricature-y. Yeah, but it was like it's real.
00:47:24
Speaker
It was real. So yeah we we see um as okay. Yeah. And he's wearing this like shirt. We see him at like a ah film set where he's talking to the like the director and the director's dad who's producing it and he's like rewriting a scene. He's giving them... like health concerns it's it's very clear that he has no idea what he's supposed to be doing like he has showed up to this movie set to film a movie that he doesn't know anything about and so it's like he's reading it for the first time and it's like i don't want to do this i don't do that and he like he he showed up super late yeah and he's like kind of living the toxic version of om one's dream to be a hero and by by doing that he's rewriting shit to make himself seem like don't i don't even know how to describe it because he comes in and he's like oh i don't want to do this scene i want to do a disco about how sad i am and that leads us into dart the disco
00:48:31
Speaker
That was the song that stayed with me after the credits rolled to this movie. I was like making some lunch after watching the movie. London, Paris, San Francisco. and like i that That song was fantastic.
00:48:46
Speaker
But I do want to call out that there's so this there's two things. and i'm mean ah An observation and then a serious observation. The observation is why I pointed out in the first part that their view of the seventies is maybe not like a hundred percent accurate, but it yeah feels like the seventies because it's so close to being grounded anyway, that you can kind of just like absorb it and accept it.
00:49:10
Speaker
yeah This is the opposite where it's how so often people look back at a style and caricaturize it. Right. So yeah this entire number dark to disco is supposed to be seventies and it is insane. Like at least 70s inspired, if not like fully. Yeah. It's like very like Studio 54. Yes. And blaxploitation. And that leads me to the second, which is that like we open the number with, and i there's a lot of caps in this part of my notes because I have some feels about this. Yeah.
00:49:47
Speaker
Where we open up. on fake afros yeah on like eastern european actresses and they're very white and there's maybe like one black woman in there yeah and she's often choreographed in the back except for the very end of her bit for this chunk because it's all the same dancers for all throughout but she's like in the very front at the the last blink of this bit but they are in animal print Yeah, like animal print stretch wear freshwa with like cutouts. and like but And I'm just like, it's like disco blaxploitation with white white women. With white dancers. And it's very interesting also because like...
00:50:27
Speaker
It's not even it's not accurate 70s cut clothing in a way that the first section of the movie did, which is it looks like like there's a lot of the women have these sort of like bikini tops and they have these like victorious secret bra cups like that are soft foam in there. And that seems like such a nitpicky thing.
00:50:51
Speaker
But that didn't exist in the 70s. And that's why it's like so interesting how perfectly all of this is looking back without accuracy and looking back at just shapes.
00:51:03
Speaker
Yeah. And also like, what an interesting choice to like, basically like roll up and not just the only thing you didn't do was just straight up blackface. Like, And it was so jarring to me because it was like, also just like, why are all these white girls here all of a sudden? Like, yes, is not which, by the way, is a hilarious thing that happens in Bollywood and in K-dramas and probably in Nollywood as well. But um is that we have been guilty in the US of just
00:51:36
Speaker
doing horrific things to like represent other whitewash cultures and whitewashing people and also just like making people from other cultures look for I don't know the kindest word I can use for this simple um this is our chance to get that back because in a lot of Bollywood movies you'll just see random ass white people who are just there And if they have lines, they're terribly delivered because they're not really actors.
00:52:10
Speaker
Like it's the same thing in K-dramas. Like there's an entire K-drama, Melinda, that I watched where there's here's a character who's like a step uncle and he's supposed to be Canadian and he doesn't speak Korean. He's never learned, even though he married a Korean woman and they live in Canada and she learned English. Like she has English and Korean down, yeah but he never learned except for like a few phrases.
00:52:32
Speaker
So... every time you see him he just talks to everybody in english and they're like i don't know what you're saying oh my god and then they talk to him in korean and they're saying like deep shit and he's like that's so cool you guys so it's it's an interesting thing but yeah there's just a bunch of these random ass white ladies and like i i did not feel solid about these afros we didn't need them We could have had this animal print without a Fawcett blowout that would have been more accurate. 100% like we didn't have to. mean, I'm, I'm, yeah, the black culture was co-opted and massive in the 70s. But like, we did not need to refer to it this way.
00:53:17
Speaker
But it's like, it would be so interesting to know what the intention of the filmmakers was, because so much of the movie is like, parodying and skewering Bollywood film industry that like, I do believe that they...
00:53:33
Speaker
did it on purpose. Oh, they did it on
Addressing Controversial Themes and Colorism
00:53:36
Speaker
purpose. Like, I would love to hear them talk about it more, but it's like colorism internationally is, is a massive problem. And so it's like, I, I would be interested to hear a lot about this because like, as a Western viewer, I go, huh?
00:53:54
Speaker
And as a mixed race viewer, I go, huh? And, And um so, yeah, that one was very jarring. And then we like through this dance number, Dark to Disco, he go from this blaxploitation moment on white bodies to like space ABBA and like right ah construction worker action worker. And the whole time Shah Rukh Khan's character, okay, is dressed in his two thousand like six style he's he's in like an mtv music video personally i don't know what everybody else is doing that's where he is he's in like a cologne commercial looks like he's from the jersey shore he does but it is yeah and it's just crazy and then and then we go from that to the love man which is the superhero
00:54:47
Speaker
He's playing. And this suit, Melinda, I'm so glad that you mentioned it earlier because it's a black superhero suit yeah with um red bikini cut underwear and a cape. And like the accessories are red, except for the belt, which is ok the muscle suit and the belt.
00:55:05
Speaker
And like that it's all quilted. Yeah. It looks like fabric the Halloween costume that you buy like a little kid to like a Hulk. My note was like, this is what we would make for a stage show if we were like, oh shit, we got a time limit. It would be like for a show where you're like, this is the strong man from like the 1900s circus. And everyone knows this is fake as hell. Proto Superman from 1935. And so it's very, it's very much a send up and very hokey as hell.
00:55:35
Speaker
great And he also just like has the dumbest like lines like to bring himself in you know, like, here I come. i mean it's In his like black and red cowboy look, he's fighting like a stuffed animal tiger.
00:55:50
Speaker
Keeps saying naughty cat. And then he says naughty pussy at one point. And was like, I'm losing my mind. Oh, no. It's just like, it's very, Sharmu Khan kills it with like the overacting. And he kills it, especially like seeing this like Nepo baby who like can't act. Yeah. because he's just like so chewing the scenery and um and then we go i'm actually like probably forgetting like connective things because i'm just going by my notes which are like you know as the movie was going yeah but we go from there and the next thing that i have noted is basically the awards ceremony which leads into a number that we've talked about which is you want to do you want to and um the awards ceremony and then the
00:56:33
Speaker
the following after party, which has a dance number is so crazy because it has so many celebrities that are wearing like award ceremony fashion. right And there's also extras like plugged in and dancers who are wearing what I would like to conservatively call a 2006 prom wear, because it is so like, it is, it's all nailing it. This is not a critique at all. For me, it is the horror of looking back. and recognizing the horror of looking in a mirror is like what it is like it's it's the horror of recognizing yourself and the stuff that you used to think looked good so crazy and at the actual awards ceremony we have these like fake trailer kind of things with like the nominee announcements oh my god they're so
00:57:18
Speaker
we because like Abhishek Bachchan for the Doom 5 where he's not actually going to appear which I laughed at um he's not wearing anything super crazy um but Akshay Kumar is wearing a cop uniform that is basically like three levels up from like a 90s stripper cop it looks like And it says Polizia.
00:57:39
Speaker
And then he has a a pelvic gun where he shoves his gun into his pants and just like if thrust. Like shoots. I was like, i would love, I feel like his aura is what is actually pulling the trigger that gun. His aura is so crazy.
00:57:55
Speaker
Cause yeah, he just like puts on, maybe he even comes out of the car with sunglasses and then he's wearing the same outfit in the theater. Yeah. Can you imagine if someone like came to the Oscars wearing their like movie costume? How insane would be like, oh, they've lost it. They've lost their mind.
00:58:15
Speaker
And then I was dying because they have okay in a trailer for an actual movie he did do as Shah Rukh Khan, which was directed by Farah Khan, who's the director of this. wow And then they redo the same thing for a different movie with a different leading actress.
00:58:34
Speaker
with the same background like the trailers yeah yeah and it was great okay great like it's just it's so funny what a send-up it is and then we go into the awards ceremony and i made a note because we've already mentioned the women's fashion where it's like prom dresses right because there was a specific type of like fancy wear that wasn't couture and like maybe couture houses were making it but now when people talk about high fashion when they're looking at award ceremonies they're expecting people to be wearing high fashion and even in the yeah even here anybody look at old hollywood or like a war show and i'm not talking like 1972 i'm talking like the 90s like into the early two thousand s yeah
00:59:19
Speaker
like Britney Spears denim on denim on denim. like People were wearing what they thought was cool at the time. And it was maybe made by a designer, but it was not where we are now, which is elevated couture fashion. Literally like pulling a runway look yeah from a designer. like There was so much more simplicity yes to what was the expectation at an event The expectation at the time was good jewelry and black.
00:59:48
Speaker
And that was it. A beautiful, like, ah you know, a dress that's like, has nice lines and fits you well. And like, maybe there's like one interesting detail, but it was not like, it was not like Cardi B showing up wearing like a Moogler couture. Like that is not a thing. All of this stuff, the expectations you could break very easily because the expectation was like evening meant black and pearls or diamonds.
01:00:12
Speaker
And so this feels like this in between moment of like wearing what you understand to be fancy and what you can afford between then and now where people are being dressed in crazy gowns and, and suits in like suits of armor and all this stuff.
01:00:33
Speaker
And so there's like the kind of stuff that you would recognize for like prom wear. And then there's this, what I wanted to call, for all the men it's what i'm calling the i'm not my dad look which is yeah still here today as v-neck t-shirts under tailored suits and it's a thing that i will be happy to see leave i'm not mad at it if i'm being honest i can take it or leave it but very often it's on somebody that comes across as a douchebag
01:01:04
Speaker
So it has to, you know, it yeah it's like a yacht frat boy of thing to it. There's aura of like that person has cocaine in their pocket. Yes, cocaine and they're going to Nantucket. Like I just, you know, blech. And so for me, no thank you.
01:01:19
Speaker
um But like this is the the Jersey Shore but with a blazer and leather shoes, you know? Because it's the ripped up jeans, it's the studded belts, it's the gold LeMay. Everybody looks like chris angel that's exactly what it is it looks like people going out for a night in vegas like that's what it looks like if you want to know like if you weren't around in 2007 look at any picture now of chris angel and like that is what like that's what this is but without the emo hair and without the eyeliner yeah And so it's different hair, like blowouts. And there's a fan that's working overtime. Thank you, Bollywood trope.
01:02:01
Speaker
There's going to like some highlights. Every single entrance, everybody's hair is that fan is working hard. and They're like tossing their shoulders. And so I just like kept laughing because there's just so much. And then Om is wearing a shirt with a seventy s collar. and it's hot pink and it's hot pink but he has a black shirt that's over it and this is all because in walks mukesh as an older man played by the same actor and he didn't die he's still in that first life the same way that om from the first part his mom and his best friend all of these people still lived and so om as okay sees mukesh
01:02:42
Speaker
while wearing the 70s colors and this is like he starts to remember yeah he sees this man and he feels very uncomfortable and we did see him in dart the disco there was like a whoosh of flame and he had a visceral response to that and he had like his response he had it happens in a restaurant and i'm like this man is frankenstein's monster he is afraid of fire wreaks out around fire it and so it's so funny it's like funny because it's so overacted but it's also like we see that the past life is creeping in yeah based on the trauma and then when he sees Mukesh it starts to flood and so he's like wearing this reference to the the decade that he died in and he's also got that stupid shirt over it and like he refuses to shake Mukesh sorry Mike's hand out of here might and Mike.
01:03:42
Speaker
I just loved that like subtlety in a scene that's so loud, where it's like they could have put him in anything. And they were like, we want to have a little bit of a foreshadowing that he's coming to a moment where he's going to start to remember.
01:03:56
Speaker
And so from here on we see him blending the modern elements and the 70s pretty consistently i think and um because he like just starts to become this blend of okay and this is also the turning point when the movie becomes like a ah revenge like a like a true crime caper yeah like vigilante detective movie where like what Because it's like it's heartbreaking, the end of part one, where it's like you see the death and then the reincarnation, you're like, where are we headed?
01:04:34
Speaker
And once Oum remembers being Oum, Omi from the first part, he's like, I'm going to get revenge for this. i'm going to get justice.
01:04:45
Speaker
And he's not looking to get justice from any outside agency. He's like, no, I have the resources right now and I have the memories. to recreate exactly the project that Shantipriya was working on when she was murdered.
01:05:00
Speaker
We're going to use it to psychologically torture this guy until he confesses what he did to Shantipriya. And so they hold this audition to cast Shantipriya. And it's kind of like the audition in the animated Anastasia movie. A hundred percent. Where we just have all these different people who don't suit and who like some who are trying to take it seriously. And there's this one girl who has an inhaler and she can't get through the line, which is just like, and this piece of vermilion, which is every woman's dream. And that's like all she's supposed to say.
01:05:33
Speaker
And she can't get through it. She's like, hit the inhaler and i was like that'd be me that'd be me and um then the last person who shows up is this girl named sandy and we just see her in silhouette because like the lights in the studio are down she's opened a door so there's daylight behind her and then there's the lights right in front the trope the classic the classic like trope oh we we've seen everybody and there's nobody good and what are we gonna do And then she comes in and she just eats shit on the floor.
01:06:02
Speaker
She just falls. And it i lost it. It's in all caps. I fucking lost it because she falls without a beat.
01:06:13
Speaker
Okay. Just says, ah fish. She's fallen.
01:06:20
Speaker
so perfectly delivered oh fish she's fallen so funny and feel like fish is like a standard for shit i don't know i think it is but it's like oh fish every time it happened ah lost it because it's delivered so seriously There's also like, so like what we, what we discover with Sandy is that she's basically like an exact copy of, of Shanty.
01:06:45
Speaker
It's played by the same actress, but it was, it was kind of like weird and meta knowing that this actual actress that was cast in the movie that they dubbed a lot of her lines and singing with someone else because the director didn't feel like her voice was where she wanted it to be for the film.
01:07:11
Speaker
I knew that they would dub the singing because very often in Bollywood, that is not the actor's yeah voice at all. Maybe I misunderstood what I read, but I thought I read that they even dubbed a little bit of her dialogue. That's crazy.
01:07:25
Speaker
Yeah. And I wonder what the reasoning is for that. i don't know. They were like, she's so beautiful, she has to be in the movie. And I love her acting in this because like Shanti Priya, in the first part, she is a lead actress. She's a famous celebrity who is like beautiful, but also is balanced. She's comfortable with the celebrity and like, she's comfortable doing the jobs. um She's unhappy deeply, but like, she's not naive.
01:07:55
Speaker
It's like that was taken from her. So she's got a harder edge to her. And then Sandy, who is basically, like a physical reincarnation of Shanti, but she doesn't have that soul yet, at least, which I don't know that she does ever because like she never wakes up and goes, I was this person. She's always Sandy.
01:08:20
Speaker
There's, At the end. She's still Sandy. she But she wrote she says things that even that even OK and Om didn't know. No, that was a ghost.
01:08:32
Speaker
That was a ghost. That wasn't her? No. So the part that's like, you buried me under the chandelier, that's not Sandy. Sandy runs in and says, I couldn't make it that was the ghost and we watch her run away and disappear so the ghost the ghost okay we'll get here we'll get you you got you got so sandy is a reincarnated body yeah but she is not and looks she looks like shanti but she is not shanti and so like shanti we find out over the course of this revenge plot where i love it because
01:09:03
Speaker
you know, okay, it's like, okay, well, we're gonna, we're gonna make this movie that didn't get made. And like, but we're gonna make a movie about a movie that didn't get made. And we're gonna make a movie about the murder that happened. And he rebuilds the set that burned down. He rebuilds it perfectly. Yeah.
01:09:20
Speaker
Just in case the movie didn't have enough going on. Like, I'm like, how many layers of Om Shanti Om? Can we? I'm like, this is why i got confused at the end. Yes.
01:09:30
Speaker
So there's so many like movies and movies and all these different things. But this one, OK remembers because he was reincarnated and he has unlocked that memory of his murder and of Shanti's murder and what he witnessed. And so all of these things that he witnessed, he puts into this movie with the director and the producer that he was effing over in the beginning of part two as OK.
01:09:53
Speaker
with Dark Day Disco where he's like, no, no, no, I have to sing a disco about my broken heart. And they're like, what are you talking about? He's like, your character is in a wheelchair. Yeah. And you don't have arms. so but And so in this, this is an offering to them where he's taking it seriously. And we see that he's very involved in casting. He's involved in the writing. He's involved in all these things.
01:10:15
Speaker
And he's like very involved with the crew and everyone because it's part of his plot. And he's showing up on time, surprising the director, like doing all these things. He's delivering his lines. He's doing all this coaching um Sandy to be more like Shanti because her role is to play the ghost.
01:10:33
Speaker
yeah But, but, but. We find out that there's a real ghost. And we find this out because we've been watching the plot, the revenge plot. We've been watching the like, you know, production happening.
01:10:46
Speaker
And there's like... filming happening and we know that sandy is being used as the ghost because they're cutting one cut that's meant to mess up mikesh because they like sting with like there's one character one actress that they cast as the character of shanty priya and then they have sandy where it's like In the same scene, she'll turn and she'll just stare straight down the barrel of the camera and she looks just like Shanti Priya and then it'll go back to the other actress.
01:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, because yeah Sandy's not actually playing Shanti Priya in the movie. It's like an established Bollywood star that they've really cast. Yeah, she's she's being like, sort of like, secretly filmed just for the purpose of freaking this guy out. Yeah, like editing her in to make it look like, I see you.
01:11:38
Speaker
And like, they're they're watching these things, like the the dailies, you know, and then Mukesh is like, can't you see it? And then they replay it and she's not there because they've got like two cuts. And so...
01:11:51
Speaker
Sandy's being used strategically, even in person, because there are like a couple of dance numbers, you know, like, here's the story, like Om Shanti Om, the song is like, ah basically this like masquerade retelling of what happened in real life that led to the murder of Shanti Priya, and the producer who killed her, and then the man who witnessed and who loved Shanti Priya and who died and was reborn.
01:12:18
Speaker
And, um, like during that sequence, which feels like, Okay. Watching that, I was like, this feels kind of like an emotional cousin to Moulin Rouge because it feels like this, like Moulin Rouge, obviously a period thing different, but it was also kind of jukeboxy, right? Like the movie, not talking about yeah stage play, but it had like references in it to things now sometimes.
01:12:48
Speaker
Like it had just like, it had other stuff happening so that it felt elevated from a true story it felt like a fable or like a fairy tale and then there were just like for me that like the thing that actually like it doesn't it doesn't correspond like um actually plot wise but like feeling wise the thing that was reminding me more with this movie was actually Barbie.
01:13:13
Speaker
i didn't see it. There's so much, like the way that Greta Gerwig made that movie, there's so much reference and inspiration and like style taken from other movies. Like they had a list of like 30 something films that she was like pulling explicit like references from in making that movie and like blending all that stuff together. So like, even though it has nothing to do with like the plot of this movie, like even at all, yeah it was giving me more like that kind of vibe where it's like being made by someone who understands the references that they're making. The Moulin Rouge comparison for me is also more of that. There's a stage production within the story.
01:14:01
Speaker
yeah And this is the stage production of it all is that they're doing this in front of an audience that's on the same plane as they are. It's not really on a stage, but they've made this show that's about a real story the same way that in Moulin Rouge, their their finale, their big show is is a a performance, which is...
01:14:20
Speaker
also a send up of Bollywood. I mean, you can go listen to our episode about Hulan Rouge. But it's like that story is also a real story that's happening. And so that part reminded me of Hulan Rouge. And not like either borrowed from each other. That's not it It's just that like... spiritually, I was like, I love this.
01:14:37
Speaker
And I also loved imagining these costumers running around for this production of like, here's these like investors and all these people come and see this, like, you know, or like, here's also cast or whatever it is, but part of our revenge plot, come watch us do a small performance musical number. And like,
01:14:56
Speaker
with changes. Yeah, the actual performance that they do is just 100% Phantom of the Opera, the masquerade. Like that's what it is. Yes, like it is 100% over the top masquerade. They literally do the chandelier drop. like Yes. It is Phantom of the Opera. With with different style clothing. a ghost. references. Yeah. It is just like, it's so theatrical.
01:15:21
Speaker
And like, OK has a bunch of costume changes. Everybody has costume changes. So I love imagining that there are costumers who are like, okay, where are strategic places? Maybe behind the staircases are quick change area. Because actually like impossible changes. Impossible. It can only exist in a film. Like you couldn't do that. It's meant to be happening in real time, but it's nuts. It's nuts. Absolutely impossible. And so it's like so good. And the whole point is to have Sandy wandering in the upstairs balconies so that Mukesh can see her and no one else reacts to her.
01:15:55
Speaker
And so at the very beginning, before we even get into the big number, they're basically like blessing the space, like let's bless this space and, you know hope for a good film shoot. And they have...
01:16:07
Speaker
papu is pretending to be like a priest like a spiritual person and he's like break this coconut and they have a fake coconut so that mukesh can't crack it so that it's like oh bad luck and then they swap it out so that okay can use a already like pre-cut coconut and make it like look like oh it isn' it's just you who's cursed and like the actress the bollywood actress who's playing um Shantipriya is going to light, you know, like a ah lamp a candle, I think, but she's going to light something for Shantipriya where they unveil this massive. Yeah, they have this huge portrait of her.
01:16:46
Speaker
And then behind the portrait, they've got like a They rigged it there's like rigged um There's like bomb wire, cartoon bomb wire. So that it'll catch fire. yeah But it doesn't work because we see that one of the wires pops off. And so Papu and like the the munitions expert are like, well, this is what happened. Papu's like trying to press the trigger and it isn't working.
01:17:10
Speaker
And so all of a sudden it catches fire on its own. Yeah, I guess that is our first sign. That's our first sign that there's a real ghost. yeah And so then we like have, you know, Sandy wandering around during big dance number, om shantio but then there's a point where everything turns and everyone leaves except for Shanti, Priya, Mukesh, and okay.
01:17:38
Speaker
And that is the ghost because she's like, and you did this to At that point, Mukesh has figured out a trick that they're playing calling it out. You're doing this.
01:17:49
Speaker
Yeah, he's seen Shanti get like snagged on ah yeah like a piece of metal and it like cut her skin and she bled a couple drops of blood. And so he's like, okay, you're not actually a ghost because ghosts don't bleed blood.
01:18:05
Speaker
And I, and he immediately understands the story, like the, the, the like scheme that they are trying to trick him into confessing to murder. And he's like, nobody can prove it. And I will not be a part of this. Yeah. But, and then that's when the actual ghost at the top of the grand staircase, Shanti Priya is like,
01:18:28
Speaker
ah she starts to talk and okay. It's like, he knows he figured it out. Don't, don't become a part of this. It's not safe anymore. And she's like, got this like very direct angry look on her face. And she starts to rattle off some real shit, which is that after the fire was set and everything burned down, she wasn't dead.
01:18:49
Speaker
And he, Mukesh came back and found her and buried her underneath the chandelier. ah Alive. And so she died even more horrendously than we were led to believe.
Revenge and Climax of Om Shanti Om
01:19:03
Speaker
And she's like, yeah, you buried me under the chandelier. And okay, is at first like Sandy stop, you don't have to keep acting. And the whole time we've seen that Sandy is a horrible actress. She's not great. Yeah. we this montage If this was Sandy, we would be like, Oh, she really pulled it in, but it's not Sandy. It's Shantipriya, the ghost. And so she is wearing the same outfit that Sandy's wearing, which is a reproduction of the outfit that Shantipriya died in.
01:19:29
Speaker
And she's talking about where her body's buried, all these things. And then she, with her ghost powers, releases the chandelier and crushes Mukesh to death.
01:19:41
Speaker
yeah and like and then has this like tearful silent goodbye okay who is realizing that he's seeing yeah the woman that he was in love with i thought at that point that like she was being like more like possessed by like the spirit of shanti so that's where i was like i so in this same scene okay is looking at shanty priya and behind him the doors are busted down and papu and somebody else and then sandy come through those doors and are like oh my god what happened and sandy's like i'm so sorry i could i just couldn't and so as she's like hugging him he's still watching shanty priya walk away from him and she runs up the stairs and disappears into nothing
01:20:30
Speaker
yeah So like Sandy is just kind of like an opportunity first okay to fall in love and have that happy ending that om wanted but i don't even know that she has like the the spirit the spirit the first life of shanty right so it's like not really ever gonna be possible for them to be together like it's just not really gonna happen yeah so it's like a superficial kind of like happy ending where he gets i mean at least mukesh is dead that's yeah mukesh is dead dead dead
01:21:02
Speaker
like super dead yeah and like then we just the movie's done and yeah we're to the credits which is yeah this amazing red carpet scene that I actually did enjoy a lot because it has our principal actors but then we get to see the crew come down the red carpet and so we actually see the faces of our costumers and we see the faces we have four different designers listed yeah and we this movie which is interesting house like wardrobe team members that we see and then like a bunch of other like hair and makeup because there's a lot of hair pieces in this that are pretty fantastic so like I don't know if you found this same information but what I found on Wikipedia was that it seemed like
01:21:50
Speaker
There was sort of like a specific designer for Shah Rukh Khan and a specific designer for Deepika Padukone and then two other costume designers for the rest of the film. Is that what found? I didn't find anything super specific. Like I opened up each...
01:22:12
Speaker
designers IMDB and I remember like seeing somewhere like a mention but like I couldn't find something good like what you found that broke it down so like one of the designers is a close friend of Shah Rukh Khan and so I can assume that he this is like qran jahar yeah and yeah that yeah according to Wikipedia he was the designer for Shah Rukh Khan's ah wardrobe in the film and Manish Malhotra is um listed as the designer for Deepika in the film and then he's a fashion designer he's a huge fashion designer huge
01:22:57
Speaker
But it reminded me of some of the like older movies that we covered, particularly in season one of the podcast, where you'd have like a different designer for specific actors. And it was really... um It was definitely like, i think that combined with the kind of like other references to the like studio system. Yeah. It was really feeling like this era of, of like Hollywood that we don't experience. and Yeah. Where you, where you have stylists yeah and then you have the team that, that covers everybody else.
01:23:29
Speaker
Right. And yeah, it was, it was very interesting because to have these like, yeah, four people. be responsible for boom, boom, boom. And so it's like, cause again, we we don't work in film. And so like, we have a general understanding of Hollywood, but of course that changes for for different projects, but it's like international,
01:23:50
Speaker
film industries, we can only, cause I don't have any articles on hand. I don't have anything that like breaks it down. And i haven't done that kind of research yet to like, see how the studio systems work out there.
01:24:04
Speaker
And so it's like, there are practical things that we can go, okay, I can assume that XYZ happens because you have to have somebody do the laundry. You have to have a stitcher, you have to have XYZ.
01:24:16
Speaker
But like when it comes to big, big, big, big big projects, I'm, No idea. I know. And I did look, cause I was sort of curious, like, because obviously like here, it's much more common that you would just have one designer, like for a film and they would do the whole thing.
01:24:33
Speaker
So I did kind of look at like a couple other films that like Shah Rukh Khan was in to kind of see like, well, what's, what's the design team like on this other Bollywood movie of the same, like kind of general like era. Yeah. And it did seem like a lot of them that I looked up had multiple designers listed. So I'm like, that made me believe, okay, this is just like a pretty normal way to do movies in this era I didn't look at more recent stuff to know if anything has changed. But this feels like something that we have talked about directly and that we've alluded to before, which in Everything Everywhere All at Once, we talked about how it was really cool to see that our director, ah sorry, not our director, our costume designer, i need to have a lot to say right now, that our costume designer ah mentioned in interviews that
01:25:25
Speaker
fittings with Keha Kwan and Michelle Yeoh and that they were like, this is nothing I would ever wear, but it's absolutely the character. yeah and we talked about that because, and we've talked about it before in other things, sometimes in films, the bigger the actor, the less design.
01:25:44
Speaker
Absolutely. there has image in Their important. Their image more important than anything else. It's more important than the character. And that's not something that I personally support. I think that if you are ah performer, you should perform as that character and not as like a different version of yourself.
01:26:02
Speaker
like Yeah. um It's hard because it's like... there's i don't For me, it's like there is a difference between being an actor and being a movie star. There different jobs, weirdly, but like we like to pretend here in the US that they are the same job, but they're not actually.
01:26:22
Speaker
yeah and it seems a little bit more um maybe... overt yeah in this movie in um and it it's like a big thing. Cause I think about like, um, there was an interview that I read a long time ago with a Hollywood designer talking about like one of the big, you know, male movie stars where it's like, they come with their
The Role of Stylists in Bollywood
01:26:43
Speaker
suits.
01:26:43
Speaker
And like they're like Tom Ford or whatever, you know, like, and then that's what they wear, or they like have a specific label, and that's it. And so, like, there's also like brand deals and things that happen on top of that. And so this feels like that, where it's like,
01:26:59
Speaker
You're my stylist because you know my deals, you know, which labels I wear and that's what we're going to do. And that's it. So you have to take that information and plug it into what I'm doing in this movie.
01:27:12
Speaker
he i don't, I don't, I don't know. It's strange. So it's it's funny to imagine that Shah Rukh Khan has his own stylist who styles him and then everybody else has to fall in line, which is why they look like they're not their dad. Yeah. Because it's also like a bunch of famous people who potentially are like, yeah, Shah Rukh Khan stylists, you know.
01:27:38
Speaker
we'll we'll do whatever or they have their own stylists i don't know but designers who did all of the other characters did a great job so they did they did a great job and they worked together i want to give them yeah that big big credit because that's usually my reticence is that there's that like movie star who has their own stylist and potentially won't wear anything else that isn't their brand and then they stand out in a weird way and like you said but everybody works together. They feel like they're in the same world.
01:28:09
Speaker
And like, I appreciate that very much. And I hope that that design process is actually fun, you know, like that it doesn't feel like limited or limiting, but feels like, okay,
01:28:25
Speaker
let's, let's all collaborate and make this work. And then I'll
Reflections on Bollywood Experience
01:28:28
Speaker
do this, but elevated for this person because it's brands or whatever. Um, well we should wrap this up. One final question before we cut.
01:28:39
Speaker
Um, what did you think of your first Bollywood experience and are you going to be pursuing any more Bollywood? I really enjoyed the movie. It's interesting to have the first Bollywood movie be like the movie that is like the end all be all of referencing every other Bollywood movie. So it's sort of like, I think if, um if I was like, very well versed in the genre, it would be a different viewing experience, but it was still enjoyable to watch, which I think is a credit to the filmmakers for making something that
01:29:11
Speaker
can only be enhanced by your knowledge, but that you can still ah enjoy and have fun with watching when you don't know anything. Like I don't. um i definitely enjoyed it. I don't know if i will watch like tons of Bollywood on my own.
01:29:32
Speaker
I'm not sure. um i definitely like really enjoy all of the, like the big like dance and song like moments in the movie. So I feel like there's maybe...
01:29:44
Speaker
more likelihood of getting into like that than like sitting through a lot of three hour long movies. It's tough. So
Preview of Next Episode: Crimson Peak
01:29:54
Speaker
that's kind of where I'm at right now. Totally fair.
01:29:57
Speaker
Thank you very much on going on this adventure with me. because oh is great to share And this feels like a perfect, a perfect one to start with, with all these big numbers. Okay. yeah Well, on that note, what are we doing next week?
01:30:09
Speaker
Next week, we are going to be watching Crimson Peak, which is, if this is like the epitome of, you know, talking about Bollywood, I feel like Crimson Peak is like the epitome of talking about Victorian Gothic explosion everywhere. i don't even know. Like, I don't know what else to say, except maybe watch Crimson Peak.
01:30:30
Speaker
Yeah. And I haven't seen it before. so oh, really? I haven't seen it before. So oh yeah is this a Colleen Atwood? Is that? that you're asking this is such a good question that i don't have i'll know next week i don't know right now i can't i'm excited because like i'm excited for some colorful gothic yeah and not you know dark dark dark dark dark black gray gothic yeah it's uh wow i look forward to hearing what you think about the movie next week a distinct tone change i think but But there's darkness in Om Shanti Om and we're going find the darkness in Crimson Peak. So it's not too far apart. Absolutely. I think they have some some spiritual connections. And um I think that these are both movies where there's a lot of big emotions. Yes.
01:31:21
Speaker
so Well, thank you so much on coming on this journey. and Thank you for listening to this episode. Please listen for our next one where I get to discover a gothic thing that Melinda likes.
01:31:34
Speaker
I, yeah. Okay. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. She loves it, you guys. Okay, bye. Bye. Bye.