Starring: Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Konkona Sensharma, Bipasha Basu, Vivek Oberoi, Deepak Dobriyal, Naseeruddin Shah

Now, this is a movie breathtaking enough to merit being taught in film school. Vishal Bhardwaj creates a dizzyingly intricate texture of style and tone, character and dialogue, music and feel -- and he does it all while remaining marvellously loyal to Shakespeare’s Othello. It's the Bard's tale, but it's overwhelmingly original.

Omkara is a mammoth achievement, a film of poetry and profanity. The dialogues, lewd on the surface and crackling with bawdy charm, can frequently be sourced directly from the 17th century masterwork. The characters are irresistibly raw and flamboyantly folksy, seductive and slithering and desi right down to their very roots. The performances are magical, as Saif breathes vile life into Iago and Konkona proves an Emilia to die for. Devgan plays a restrained Othello while Kareena's Desdemona is enchanting, fragile.

Bhardwaj being a do-it-yourself director to the fullest, his superlative soundtrack is arguably the year's finest album, lending itself to backdrop and foreground with equal ease, Gulzar's lyrics foreboding and relevant at every step. Subtly referential to the extreme, this is a film to revel in over and over again, a beautiful, brutal celebration of grand cinema.

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