Skip to main content

Haider – Kashmir’s Hamlet


Vishal Bhardwaj has given us a monumental movie.  Haider keeps the audience glued to their seats from the beginning to the end.  Though the story is adapted from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it takes on a fresh life of its own drawing its vitality from the complex situation that existed in Kashmir in the 1990s when militancy snowballed rending the whole social fabric of the state.  The Pandits were forced to flee in large numbers.  The Indian armed forces became a ubiquitous phantom amidst the dark shadows that hovered over the earthly paradise. In the movie, however, the armed forces appear briefly only.

Shahid Kapoor mesmerises us with his enactment of the young idealistic poet’s dilemma as he is torn between his romantic idealism and the horrible reality that unfolds before his very eyes.  Terrorism and the evils it spawns are sidelined by the betrayal of the young poet’s dreams about love and relationships.  Is his mother guilty of marital infidelity?  Is his paternal uncle a villain?  Does his own beloved girl turn a traitor on him? How much does he understand?  How much lies beyond his understanding?

The movie has not let down the genius of Shakespeare.  There are breathtaking moments of drama and poetry, subtle philosophy and stunning dark humour.  Like a mesmerising piece of undulating symphony, the movie grows in our psyche shaking it out of complacence of all sorts.  It makes us think profoundly.  It makes us feel deeply.  It moves to a climax quite different from what Shakespeare gave to his play.  It leaves us mesmerised.

Some truths can be very simple.  But most truths of human life become complex because of the motives attached to them by human beings.  For the armed forces, truths are as simple as ‘the person on the other side of the border is an enemy’ or ‘every terrorist is a threat to the nation’s integrity.’  Such truths belong to a rigidly systemic way of perceiving reality.  That’s why the role of the Forces in the movie is limited. Even the truths of terrorists belong to that category.  But a poet or a philosopher may have more complex truths when he asks a terrorist, “Are you a Sunni or a Shia?”  Truths become still more complex when genuine love and idealism underlie human quests.  Even the skull dug out of a graveyard can mock us on such occasions.  The graveyard can produce soul-stirring music, surrealistic though the music and the scene may be.  A touch of surrealism is inevitable in a movie like Haider.



Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Long ago I have enjoyed SRK's RNBJ. Your review convienced me to go for Haider.

    ReplyDelete
  3. True. This movie doesn't disappoint and doea justice to Hamlet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's one of the few Hindi movies I watched without feeling bored at any time except in the last few scenes where violence went overboard.

      Delete
  4. Loved the film. True to its essence. Controversial and yet not. I can't believe people are watching bang bang over this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. While I was watching it, a fellow behind me was attending to a phone call. He said on the phone, "This is my kind of movie, teri nahi. Tu Bang Bang dekh lo..." Controversies are created by such people, I think :)

      Delete
  5. Lovely review Tomichan.. I think Haider is being the talk of the town in the blogosphere in recent days. I almost read all of it. Your's seems to be the best and very refined one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had decided not to read any review before watching this movie so that I wouldn't be prejudiced. I know I'm now prejudicing some people at least. But can't help it.

      Delete
  6. I loved Omkara and Maqbool ! Going for Haider tomorrow.Thanks for the excellent review.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Most welcome, Nima. While watching this movie Please forget the popcorn :)

      Delete
  7. I watched the play Hamlet recently and was overwhelmed to see the trailer the next day. Hamlet is a masterpiece. Simple truths yet complex attachments for the truth. Totally agree with it. Love how the story unfolds and it covers so much more than just the plot alone.
    I am sure the team has worked hard for this movie and I can see that in trailers also. I don't think the movie would disappoint me. It would exciting to watch Kashmir's Hamlet :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You will definitely enjoy the movie. Every actor has performed well, the story line is excellent and the dialogues carry punch.

      Delete
  8. The thing about Shakespearean tragedies is that they are so relatable that you will feel a stratagem of fear settling into you as you finish it. Haider just took Shakespeare's greatest contribution to English literature and executed just like that divine Iambic Pentameter verse. I saw the movie and was mesmerized.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Such was the genius of Shakespeare that it can inspire great movies today too. And brilliant ones at that.

      Delete
    2. It is said that the real work of literature transcends the boundaries of Time Place and Dimensions and stands out as an epitome of universatlity

      Delete
  9. Yet to watch the movie...your review has boosted my interest.... :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You'll be happier for having watched the movie. All the best.

      Delete
  10. Vishal Bhardwaj is a master storyteller.. I can't say about Shakespeare but Vishal creates the stories beautifully!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He does justice to Shakespeare. So your admiration is highly justified :)

      Delete
  11. Watched the movie and loved it..No doubt it's a master piece :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The

Country without a national language

India has no national language because the country has too many languages. Apart from the officially recognised 22 languages are the hundreds of regional languages and dialects. It would be preposterous to imagine one particular language as the national language in such a situation. That is why the visionary leaders of Independent India decided upon a three-language policy for most purposes: Hindi, English, and the local language. The other day two pranksters from the Hindi belt landed in Bengaluru airport wearing T-shirts declaring Hindi as the national language. They posted a picture on X and it evoked angry responses from a lot of Indians who don’t speak Hindi.  The worthiness of Hindi to be India’s national language was debated umpteen times and there is nothing new to add to all that verbiage. Yet it seems a reminder is in good place now for the likes of the above puerile young men. Language is a power-tool . One of the first things done by colonisers and conquerors is to

Diwali, Gifts, and Promises

Diwali gifts for me! This is the first time in my 52 years of existence that I received so many gifts in the name of Diwali.  In Kerala, where I was born and brought up, Diwali was not celebrated at all in those days, the days of my childhood.  Even now the festival is not celebrated in the villages of Kerala as I found out from my friends there.  It is celebrated in the cities (and some villages) where people from North Indian states live.  When I settled down in Delhi in 2001 Diwali was a shock to me.  I was sitting in the balcony of a relative of mine who resided in Sadiq Nagar.  I was amazed to see the fireworks that lit up the city sky and polluted the entire atmosphere in the city.  There was a medical store nearby from which I could buy Otrivin nasal drops to open up those little holes in my nose (which have been examined by many physicians and given up as, perhaps, a hopeless case) which were blocked because of the Diwali smoke.  The festivals of North India

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so