700MB, 96 minutes. The picture quality, from the 80’s, made me wonder if Kamal Swaroop intended it to be this way. Or if I had just downloaded a poor video.
A hand hangs over the Himanshuchakram, slowly moving the dry nib over its surface as the narrator explains the origins of the name ‘Om’. Gayatri dreams of a life of riding her bicycle, which for her is no different from freedom. Om is in his Science class while a frog expands and becomes ‘Rana Tigrina’. There are familiar noises which I cannot place, and half sentences that I can almost understand. The story jumps forth and backwards again, spinning, sliding, slowing…
The calm landscapes are a source of irony in this tumultuous tale which doesn’t try to be anything. It is rightly dubbed the great Indian LSD trip, for it is a spectacle, a series of sounds and disconnected meanings, leaving you with a strange feeling that you know what it is all about. But you can’t say it out aloud, not even to yourself.
I suppose there are themes of confusion, teenage angst, sexuality, superstition and death. Any or all of these could exist simply in my mind, as Om-Dar-Ba-Dar is simply a framework that you fill with your own thoughts and feelings. In one scene Om’s nostrils are flaring; he can’t continue studying. When asked why, he says that his nose comes in the way of his vision. “Jab main padhta hun, to naak akshar kha jaati hai.” As a remedy, he is given dark-goggles and told that they will help keep his eyes within the frame. I think the movie is the frame within which we are allowed to move.
This is a movie about diamonds within frogs, crackers which become bombs and a boy who earns a living by holding his breath. I will learn more from this dream the next time I watch it.
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