Haider

HAIDER to me is an acronym that means the following:

H. Haunting. Be it in its background score, music, lyrics, playback (especially Rekha Bharadwaj, Sukhwinder Singh, and Arijit Singh), cinematography, or backdrop of Kashmir in 1995, Haider is Haunting, and how! The film will stay with you long after you have left the theater.

A. Astounding. Haider is an astoundingly adept adaptation of a classic written almost 415 years ago that can be enjoyed irrespective of your knowledge about the Shakespearean Tragedy - Hamlet. If you don't know Hamlet, great! You do? Even better!

I. Incredible. Haider is incredible - in terms of its performances. Be it that of Shahid Kapoor (Haider/Hamlet) who performs a complex role with the kind of award worthy chutzpah that should silence all his detractors once and for all. Or for that matter the the triumvirate of Tabu (Halala/Gertrude) - ethereal, dauntless, and supreme, Kay Kay Menon (Khurram/Claudius) - terrific, resolute, and subtle or Irfan Khan (Rooh/The Ghost of Hamlet's father) - rudimentary and underplayed. Not to be forgotten is Shraddha Kapoor (Aarshi/Ophelia) who pitches in a performance that is 'picture'esque perfect and so full of finesse. And of course the two Salman Khan's who are fans of the superstar and who will surely gain some fans of their own post this film. In fact, every single member of the cast pitches in a perfect performance here, irrespective of the role and duration.

D. Daring. Haider is daring in talking about issues that many wouldn't touch with a bargepole and for the way it has juxtaposed a Shakespearean tragedy with a human tragedy - Kashmir. The valley is a character here that finally finds a voice of its own. The interpretations of that voice are truly brilliant.

E. Effective. Sometimes experimentation and reinterpretations fail. Not here. With layer upon layer waiting for the audience to be interpreted (for example the touch of Oedipal complex between a mother and son, the growing of guilt of a well meaning lover, the song of the gravediggers, the examples of 'Chutzpah' and its comparison with AFSPA etc). Haider is effective on multiple levels and truly faultless in its execution.

R. Rooh (Spirit/Soul). This is a film with an indomitable spirit that filmmakers would die to include in their body of work, and which Vishal Bharadwaj effectively manages to in this lifetime. This film has that which many a masterpiece may sometimes lack - a soul. A terrific triumph encompassing its soulful music, soul stirring performances, and soul warming message.

In short - watch Haider - in a theater. For Vishal Bharadwaj, the Director/Composer/Writer. For Shahid, the rising prince. For Tabu the eternal Queen. For Gulzar, the lyricist. For the cinematography by Pankaj Kapoor and the editing by Aarif Sheikh. And finally for Kashmir, the unforgettable voice of humanity.

When films transmute William Shakespeare's poetic imagery and the atmosphere that his verses conjure into re-imagined, re- contextualized visuals, and not merely reproduce the action with select dialogues, a movie adaptation of a Shakespeare play can be considered successful. That is why, thought British film scholar Roger Manvell, Shakespeare often translates best in what he considered "foreign films". The setting is one of the reasons Haider, Vishal Bhardwaj's adaptation of Hamlet, works. It is true to the haunting ambiguity of the characters' motives in the original play, Shakespeare's most opaque of tragedies, but the Kashmir canvas is potent. Bhardwaj's visual intelligence and the screenplay by Bhardwaj and Basharat Peer, one of India's acute commentators on Kashmir, his home state, add to the effective localization. Shakespearean purism aside, Haider is a thrilling film. It is a film of luxuriant paranoia. It is about Oedipal love. Unlike the cardboard insurgency imagery or images of damaged beauty that soak most films about Kashmir, Haider is an unflinching take on the Kashmir malaise, the tragedy infused with a sense of dark humor about the ordinary Kashmiri's hopelessness. Compared to Bhardwaj's earlier two Shakespeare adaptations, Maqbool (Macbeth) and Omkara (Othello), both of which depended heavily on language and dialogues and used Shakespeare's stories rather conveniently to propel the plot, Haider is a quieter yet richer spectacle and a convincing standalone piece. Bhardwaj chooses bold strokes over gloomy introspection, and in that sense, Haider is in the tradition of mainstream Hindi cinema. The picturization of songs is riveting to watch (Pankaj Kumar's cinematography is breathtaking throughout, and especially in the songs) and the songs are some of Bhardwaj's best compositions as a music director in recent times. The melodrama towards the end loosens the narrative and the last half hour feels like a bit of a drag, again a typical affliction in Hindi films. The protagonist is far from the melancholy Dane; Haider, which Shahid Kapoor plays with impressive zest and inventiveness, is more a dashing, combustible figure than a brooder. Bhardwaj also does away with the supernatural horror so integral to the original play, and which can be an easy tool for creating suspense and drama in cinema. The horror is in the everyday macabre reality of death, loss and waiting, and in the manipulation of a Kashmiri Muslim's emotions and insecurities. Haider (Kapoor) arrives in the Kashmiri village he left long ago to study at Aligarh after his father, a doctor, has disappeared. His mother Ghazala (Tabu) is romantically close to his father's younger brother (Kay Kay Menon). Arshi (Shraddha Kapoor), his childhood sweetheart, is torn between her pro-Indian establishment family and Haider, who is devastated to see his mother's sudden transformation. His idyllic childhood with parents seemingly in love is shattered. When Roohdar (Irrfan Khan), a mysterious man with a limp sends him a message from his lost father, Haider is on a destructive path of jealousy, hatred, turmoil and doubt. Central to the story is the relationship between Ghazala and Haider— a tender as well as anguished bond between mother and son, fueling the film as essentially an Oedipal drama. The romantic love between Arshi and Haider is almost a sweet afterthought. The casting ideas work impressively well. Kay Kay Menon stands out as a superbly calculating man, the villain in Haider's mind, and Tabu makes a heart-rending Ghazala. Shraddha Kapoor delivers an earnestly fervent performance and Irrfan Khan is pitch perfect as a quietly menacing presence, the only personification close to a ghostly apparition. Salman Khan is here too, in a deliciously manufactured ode to the Hindi film hero through Salman and Salman, Haider's friends and a pair of all-round crooks, an interesting replication of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from the original play. Haider is an immensely effective re imagination of Shakespeare—and the film's biggest triumph is that the provincial, in this case Kashmir and the characters defined by its reality, shine in a universal and timeless tragedy

So, hours after I have finished watching the best movie to have come out this year( by a margin), I am finally in a condition to write anything about it. I am going to stick my neck out and say, Haider is the best work of Vishal Bhardwaj till date.

There is no doubt, that for a story driven by passion, revenge, love and power, where emotional dispute forms the core of it, no land other than Kashmir, which has been living under the clouds of dispute ever since, would have been a better choice as the setting for the adaptation.

The film is haunting and engrossing. It seamlessly adapts Hamlet and at the same time creates unforgettable characters of its own and makes us see a complex world through their eyes. I can't recall any other film which has completely been shot in the valley and surely none depicting it in all it's glory.

The film takes off with the event around which the actions of all the the players of the movie would revolve. One gets only the first hour to get to know the basic nature of the characters as platform for the mind blowing second half is being built. At the cusp of the interval when an ever assured Irrfan Khan makes an intriguing entry, you only get a hint of things to come.

The second half unleashes on you Shahid Kapur, who for the first time in his career shows glimpses of Pankaj Kapur. Those three minutes ( you would know which when you watch it ) where Shahid displays what all he is capable of, are those you would want to watch again and again. Kay Kay Menon is now a veteran and he doesn't disappoint.The only weak link to this extraordinary cast could have been Shraddha Kapoor, but she surprises everyone with a very composed yet captivating presence on screen. The heart of the film lies in the eyes of Tabu who makes the movie as deep as the depth of her eyes and as intensely beautiful as her voice. As we hear that Vishal Bhardwaj was not ready to make the film without Tabu, you will believe it once you have watched the film.

There is no way you can expect anything short of the best from the dialogues and music, when Gulzar Saab and VB themselves are at helm and they ensure that you do not fall off track even for a moment. A cinematographer can hardly mess it up when you are shooting in paradise. After a brushstroke in Rockstar and a miniature art-piece in Lootera, we get to seethe full painting of Kashmir in Haider. There are enough funny spots in this dark tale of complex emotions,thanks to the fact that Salman Khan had long hair during the period the movie is set.

The film has various undertones which were obviously part of the play as well. It would have required a director and screenwriter who is at the peak of his direction and writing skills to have made it happen. The dexterity with which Vishal Bhardwaj has been able to pull it off shows us why he is probably the best in the business in India. I feel, it requires at least another watching before one can completely absorb the enormity of the work that has been created.

Salute Vishal 'Bard'waj. Go get Haidered because rarely do you get a chance to read literature on screen.

Haider is the latest offering from the renowned Indian filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj. Co-written by Basharat Peer and Bhardwaj himself, Haider is the third and final chapter in Bhardwaj's Shakespeare trilogy. Having already made successful adaptations of Macbeth (Maqbool, 2003) and Othello (Omkara, 2006), Bhardwaj was left with the choice of adapting either King Lear or Hamlet to complete his trilogy. He opted for the latter because of the presence of a strong sexual undercurrent in the source material—a motif that harks back to the first two films of the trilogy. The uncanny choice of Kashmir of the 1990s—a treacherous avenue of unparalleled beauty and unfathomable danger where people just disappear, never to return again—as the movie's backdrop proves to be a stroke of pure genius as it helps Bhardwaj in orchestrating an enchanting mise-en-scène that elevates an otherwise sprawling orgy of histrionics to the realms of realism.

By the mid-1990s, Kashmir had taken the form of a like a spewing volcano, a ticking time bomb ready to go kablooey at any given moment. The terrorist insurgency in the Kashmir valley had started to pose a serious threat to India's sovereignty and the army had to be given a carte blanche so as to guard the country against any possible threat from both within and as well as outside the country. The people of Kashmir started seeing the growing military activity in the region as a violation of their basic rights. The separatist leaders saw this as a golden opportunity to galvanize the masses against the state and started adding fuel to fire as the valley got encompassed in a miasma of mistrust. Although, the situation has improved significantly over the last decade, a lot of work still needs to be done before the conflict can be fully resolved. Bhardwaj's film also leaves a strong message not only for people of Kashmir but for all humanity that nothing can be gained through revenge and in the absence of trust.

Adapting a work of Shakespeare is no kid's play. Even the most experienced campaigners can falter if their ambition gets the better of them. The key to adapting any major work of literature is to be wary of one's limitations. Haider is far from being called a perfect adaptation of Hamlet. But, Bhardwaj, to his credit, gets the job done. There are moments of sheer brilliance but there is also a lot of drivel which could have easily been chopped off. Haider has all the makings of an epic but it faces some serious pacing issues towards the second half. Also, the narrative appears to be sketchy at some places. But, that's the price that one must be willing to pay for one's ambition.

One of the main themes of Hamlet is chaos. This chaos is most evident in the play's central character who, in many ways, is a personification of confusion and duality. His highly complex, fascinating albeit bizarre nature makes him a singular character in all literature, endowed with contradictory traits that fade the lines that separate virtue and vice, heroism and villainy, and sanity and madness. In Haider, Vishal Bharadwaj and Shahid Kapoor try their best to grapple with the endless contradictions that define Hamlet's multidimensional character. Oedipus complex is another major theme that runs through Hamlet. The term Oedipus complex denotes the subconscious emotions and ideas that focus upon a child's desire to have sexual relations with the parent of the opposite sex. In Haider the syndrome is both latent and nuanced in comparison to the play.

Haider not only serves as a decent adaptation of Hamlet, but it also proves to be a powerful socio-political commentary on Kashmir of the 1990s. Without the Kashmir angle, Haider would have appeared more empty and existential, with the Shakespearean characters merely playing their parts in a bid to reach the end of the trail. But, with Kashmir as its backdrop, it almost comes across as a propaganda films that aims to serve as a bitter reminder of our not too distant past. Haider is a warning of how easily the youngsters can be brainwashed and led astray by anti-national elements if the state machinery fails to look after them.

While the acting is brilliant all around, it is Tabu who steals the show with a multilayered portrayal that would have guaranteed her an Oscar had Haider been a Hollywood production. Shahid Kapoor's performance in Haider is not perfect but is easily the best of his career, and it comes as no big surprise as Bhardwaj has a reputation to get the best out of his actors. Kay Kay Menon plays his detestable part with the desperation of a mangy scoundrel. Shraddha Kapoor serves well as an eye candy, but, beyond that, not much can be said of her acting. Irrfan Khan is brilliant as ever in the limited screen time that he gets. While the entire support cast does a reasonable job, Narendra Jha, who impresses in the role of Haider's father, deserves a special mention.

Overall, Haider is a dark, distorted and diabolical work of cinematic art that falls well short of attaining perfection. At regular intervals, Bhardwaj tries to lighten up the mood perhaps to satisfy the cravings of the casual viewers. Needless to say, the movie is technically brilliant: cinematography, editing, and music are all at par with the international standards. The movie has several memorable sequences but the ones that stand out are: Shahid Kapoor's monologue, the sequence in which Haider brutally kills his captors, and the final graveyard sequence which may prove to be a real trendsetter as far as Hindi cinema is concerned. Haider is not meant for casual viewers for it will test their patience to the limit. As far as the intelligent viewers are concerned, the movie offers enough food for thought to keep them engaged. Highly recommended!

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Shahid kapoor has hit the bull's eye this time with haider. The ease with which he unveils the character of Hamlet on screen needs an OUT- standing ovation. He has exploited all his talent in the movie and has left no stone unturned. The other eye catching character is the protagonist's mother and I guess no one could have dine it better than Tabu. She has been a brilliant actress and again proves her mettle here. Kay Kay menon and Irrfan Khan are as always superb. Shraddha kapoor is sweet but does not have much to do. Overall, to go or not to go is not a question at all. It's a must watch and undoubtedly the best movie of year 2014 till now.