Movie Analysis : O My God (Hindi-2012)
Movie Name: OMG: Oh My God
Director: Umesh
Shukla
Story, Screen Play
& Dialogue: Bhavesh
Mondalia, Umesh Shukla
Music Composer: Himesh
Reshammiya
Production Year: 2012
Original Source: 1.
From a Gujarati play” Kishan Vs Kanhaiya”
2.
From the Movie “The Man Who Sued God”
By The Original View Films Production
Directed by Mark Jotte (Original Writer)
and
written by John Clarke
Producers: Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, Dr. B.K
Modi
Grazing
Goat Pictures
Play
Time Creation
Spice
Studios
Main Actors: Akshay
Kumar (Krishna Vasudev Yadav)
Paresh
Rawal (as Kanji Bhai)
2. Plot
Analysis:
OMG is a
story of Kanji a protagonist who discovers his faith through the mishaps and
unfortunate occurrences of his life. He undergoes a transition of atheism to
belief in God. This transition is done not with the ordinary events of life but
with the supernatural event of God coming in person. He loves his life and his family. His business is that of
selling idols of various gods. He makes fun of these as he buys them for a very
small price and fools the gullible fanatics by selling them for large sums, of how it was unearthed hundreds of
years ago in famous temples. He is literally laughing all the way to the bank,
when the Gods decide to reprimand him.
Kanjilal is a self-proclaimed protagonist and an atheist. But his own wife maintains a small temple space and believes in
the power of prayers and fasting. Most of his scorn is expressed through witty
banter and dismissive conclusions. Much to all-round horror, he drags
his family off a religious function which instigated many saffron religious
leaders. His so called blasphemy brings God’s wrath, as it is said by the same
leaders, his shop is destroyed, leaving him facing near ruin. The insurance
company calls it an 'act of god', that serves the heathen right. But Kanji bhai
decides to make a fight of it, and demands divine justice, and that's what the
rest of it is about. Although it talks of God it can be categorized into
commercial. The climax message is to
perceive God as love rather than a dictator whom to be afraid of.
3. Technical Analysis:
The Hollywood styles of camera
angles are used in various instances especially during the introduction of
Akshay Kumar as God. The motorbike resembles of the Hollywood movie Ghost
Rider. The characters for spiritual leaders are rightly chosen. But the
disciples of the leaders are not fitting in the context especially while
introducing Leeladhar, the lady disciple who gives unnecessary smile while
worshipping. Background music gives more weight tot the whole plot and the
typical Bollywood (Mumbai Cinema) music is found in the first song.
4. Sociological Analysis:
The basic problem of faith and reason is well
portrayed in the movie. Though it deals with religion in general the more focus
is on Hinduism. The values of new age spirituality are shown with its positive
as well as negative ideologies. Some
principles are morally good but the piety and rituals are at stake in this
movie. There is no right reason is shown for cult and rituals. Thus it may lead
the mass to the misunderstanding of meaningless worship. The courtroom scene where Kanji bhai takes on
the lawyer and spiritual gurus and priests is hilarious and insightful. Same as
the television show where he is the guest. His views transforms even the
television anchor, who started by putting him on the mat with her direct line
of questioning.
God must be given prime
importance but how do we give is the main lesson to be learnt from this movie. God
is a personal choice and open to interpretation. His origins are undefined and
range from mystical to scientific. He is someone with whom we are deeply
conditioned to have faith in and never to question. Religion is
man-made. Its original purpose was to function as a discipline and technique,
guiding the progress of spiritual conscience, before its ideals were completely
distorted to set up a dogmatic rulebook of blind devotion, intimidating myths
and ritualistic lifestyle. OMG-O
My God creates a hard-hitting premise where its lead protagonist
decides to dispute this rigid system by dragging God and the business of
religion to court. The newly sprouting godmen and godwomen are portrayed
mostly as unauthentic. Since the spiritual gurus are getting prominence in this
century it could be a help for the people to choose the right and the authentic
ones.
Critical Evaluation:
Being a commercial movie the
primary aim of the film O My God should be of earning money and yet this has a
message to be delivered to all who believe in God. In this present scenario of
rising conservatism and religious extremism this film has a daring approach to religious
practices. Could a filmmaker be brave enough to take
on all those thousands of outraged souls who would be shown up for what they
indulge in daily doing: all sorts of immoral things and then demanding
expiation from their deities?
It
must be true that the whole credit for the movie goes to the terrific Paresh
Rawal who takes almost the whole attention of the audience all along the movie.
But there is no sign of character fatigue or repetition. Armed with superb
writing and a keen understanding of Kanji's convictions and qualms, the actor
grabs his viewer's attention from start to finish. But the let parts are taken
by Akshay who comes as a Hindu diety – Krishna, in modern attire. There are also
enough smiles to keep us going even when things get humdrum and repetitive
clichéd representations of greedy godmen and sultry sadus. Oh My God strives to seek metaphors between Kanji's absence of faith
and an ardent struggle to expose the ugly face of the ridiculously rich godmen
and their widespread political connections. All of this, of course, is very
effective and so the message is both relevant and entertaining.
The powerful dialogue and sharp logic richly articulated in
Kanji's furious criticism of callous wastage of resources, discrimination in
devotion and ridiculous expenditure under the pretext of grand customs and hollow traditions is one of the
praiseworthy aspects of this movie. The final message, God is love, sounds like Christianity. Moreover, the biblical
message from the Gospel of Mathew 23:27, the words of Jesus: "Woe
to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like
whitewashed tombs”, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside is
full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. Through this message he shocks
the radicals with his simple truth of love against their mockery of concern. The film communicates God in a
personality which is not the god of Vedas especially the ṅirguna
Brahman of Ṥaṅkara.
And our relationship with God should be with
love not out of fire.
ṅirguna
Brahman of Ṥaṅkara.
And our relationship with God should be with
love not out of fire.
The profound reason for the
atheistic view of Rawal is the lack of real spirituality. Because spirituality
should be transmitted into ordinary life events but it is not the case in the
movie and so being a protagonist he does not believe in God. On the contrary he
turns over a new leaf at the end to be a believer but with the supernatural event
of God healing him in person. This means no hope for the atheists in the world
to believe in God unless he comes in person.
Kudos to director Umesh Shukla and his
entire cast and crew for the movie with divine message for the world.
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