"Om Bar-D-Bar" is a free-wheeling piece of what might best be described as 'experimental' cinema. It has a narrative but that narrative, along with the film's 'style', is all over the place. In America, of course, such films are fairly common in avant-garde cinema but this one hails from India and came out at a time when Indian feature films were meant to be nothing more exciting than the usual Bollywood production. This one may have Bollywood elements but, like everything else in the picture, they are subverted.
It was directed by Kamal Swaroop and it was clearly not aimed at a mass audience. if technically it's on the ropey side, (some of the night-time shooting is poor), it does show imagination and is often shot like a documentary. Of course, the big question is, is it any good or just self-indulgent? Swaroop clearly has skill, (though this is the only one of his films I've seen), but despite the skill and the imagination I found it very hard-going.
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