{"id":7226,"date":"2016-04-09T03:36:46","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T22:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=7226"},"modified":"2016-04-09T03:36:46","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T22:06:46","slug":"its-okay-to-not-be-okay-after-watching-ok-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=7226","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Okay to Not Be Okay After Watching OK Computer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<span class=\"dropcap\">P<\/span>heww. Where to even begin? <em>OK Computer<\/em> is a six-episode series incorrectly billed as India\u2019s first sci-fi comedy. It is also a six-episode hallucinatory romp through the Disneyland of morphing genres that\u2019ll leave you thrilled, dizzy, and baffled at the same time. On paper Hotstar\u2019s <em>OK Computer<\/em> is set in 2031 Goa, where robots (not rowdy north Indians mind you) have somehow become ubiquitous to the point of being everywhere. Holograms flash in the sky when a light-and-sound show postures as the city of the future. \u201cBhavishya mein aap ka swagat hai,\u201d a voice announces. It\u2019s all haywire from this point forward. From the stable of the unpredictable yet dependable Anand Gandhi, this series is one coked-up idea after the other, unrestrained by concern for tonality or consistency. As far as farces go, <em>OK Computer<\/em> is one of the most intriguing ones you\u2019ll see in a long long time.\n\nWritten and directed by Pooja Shetty and Neil Pagedar, the series begins at the site of a murder, where a self-driven car has allegedly killed a human. Saajan, played by the committed Vijay Varma, is tasked with the investigation. Saajan\u2019s cynical worldview, his belief that robots aren\u2019t all good, is countered by the pro-robot Laxmi (Radhika Apte). I\u2019m not sure if the two were given the same cue for their dialogues, but for some reason their exchanges are shouting matches, debating everything from the ethics of robotic intelligence to human narcissism. Saajan\u2019s contemptuous slow-motion of being perennially frustrated is never really explained and it wears you down soon enough. As the investigation meanders every which way, the series introduces as many tangential concepts and ideas as it could possibly imagine. There is rampant political critique of the times the series is set in, with enough suggestions that while India may evolve technologically, our anxieties will remain as primitive as they are today.\n\nFor unexplained or unjustified reasons, the actors break the fourth wall mid-way to segue into a mockumentary format. It could have been a useful tool to feed the notion of an imagined future to unsuspecting watchers, but the placement is so inopportune it comes across as gimmicky. Not too long ago in an interview Nawazuddin Siddiqui said, \u201cOur cinema is verbose.\u201d Neither character in <em>OK Computer<\/em>, big or small, is hunkered down to a pause. At one point, you feel bad for the largely silent robots, who better evade sentience for the risk of entertaining some of the mind-boggling conversations humans are having in front of them. Nobody, literally no one, talks straight or gets to their point. Every line seems burdened by the necessity to pass on a witticism or a commentary of some sort. \u201cWoh mere lips padh rahi hai, this is a violation of privacy,\u201d Saajan says at one point. You get the kookiness the writers are going for here but come on, really?\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p><em>OK Computer<\/em> wants to punch above a bar that has really not been defined in the Indian context.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nThere are so many baffling creative choices in this series, it will make you want to sit next to the ocean for a site of clear vision as relief. The robots speak in weird voices, all of them a drugged version of Rosesh from Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. The holograms, niftily pulled off by the graphics team are wasted as nuisance value, their presence as auspicial as it is imprecise. Some narrative choices like the unbearable backstory of a perceptive robot, his awkward investigation, though creative, are awfully stretched. At some point, the robot chooses to become a stand-up comedian perhaps as a topical jibe at the state of comedy in this country. But by the time Jackie Shroff appears in a series-stealing cameo, a confetti of half-assed ideas have been blown in your face and you are left trying to wipe your memory clean in order to appreciate the simpler things we know about filmmaking \u2013 acting and directing.\n\n<em>OK Computer<\/em> is an example of a series that had too many good ideas on the table at the start to let go of any one. It also comes across as a show that was built unrestricted by the gaze of an outsider, a layman who could have offered valuable insight after he had picked up his jaw from the floor. Is it a sci-fi drama, a parody, a satire on the present or a vanity project, masquerading as concept-level induction for dummies like myself? To me, it felt like everything and eventually nothing. There are some creative flourishes that hint at what this series could have been had the makers pinned down a tone. A robot-making corporation, in one scene, enlists a human to literally moan the death of the victim at a press conference. It\u2019s a Black Mirror kind of moment but it\u2019s happening in a Charlie Kaufman\/Airplane kind of world.\n\nCertain incoherent pieces of cinema become cult because they remain true to their inaccessibility. <em>OK Computer<\/em> wants to punch above a bar that has really not been defined in the Indian context. In doing so, it neither knows if it should give us science or sarcasm, story or commentary, characters or plot. Invariably, it muddles everything up, ending up as an avalanche of half-baked eggs that the creators give up on flipping, so convinced they are that the goofiness will alone pardon their incoherence. To which effect, the abstract, almost absurdist tone of the series may itself be the perfect metaphor for the future where language and personality all cease to make sense. Even in that case, it\u2019s a future we will take some time getting to, as this series is a taste that will take some acquiring, at least in the present.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anand Gandhi\u2019s OK Computer is an example of a series that had too many good ideas on the table at the start to let go of any one. Is it a sci-fi drama, a parody, a satire on the present, or a vanity project, masquerading as concept-level induction for dummies like myself? To me, it felt like everything and eventually nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":7227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[11195,11196,11197,6104],"class_list":["post-7226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-anand-gandhi","tag-ok-computer","tag-ok-computer-review","tag-sci-fi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>It\u2019s Okay to Not Be Okay After Watching OK Computer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anand Gandhi\u2019s OK Computer is an example of a series that had too many good ideas on the table at the start to let go of any one. 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