Intrigued by the first look and the trailers, I couldn’t
wait for Haider to release. On the day of its release which was Gandhi Jayanti, I went to watch the film alone, as all my friends were busy with
something or the other. And I definitely wasn’t disappointed to take all this
pain–It was worth it. Seldom do you have movies like these, which break the
clutter of brainless, laden with non-sense masala, films (isn’t always audience’s
demand).
Haider according to me isn’t the best adaptation of
Hamlet, rather it is much more than just that. There have been mixed
reviews of the film, but for me, it is nine on ten-hands down. Vishal Bhardwaj like
in all his previous adaptations carefully chooses the backdrop, as the
underworld in Maqbool, Bihari gangs in Omkara and Kashmir during the insurgency in
Haider.
Politics of the place and power positions play a
catalyst in how each of the characters behaves in the film. Hence, making it
easier for the viewer to understand why is a character behaving in a certain
way. For example, you understand Ghazala’s insecurity comes from Hilal Meer’s
being a Good Samaritan towards militants. Who knows he was actually one of the
militants fighting for the so-called azaadi!
As he, unlike Ghazala, is neither shocked when a gun is found in Haider’s bag
nor is he keen on sending him away. This is later evident in Haider’s monologue
when he talks about azaadi and in his
love/admiration for his father more than his mother.
Bhardwaj has very smartly chosen the colours for
the film, to depict the psyche of the characters. He like a painter mixes black
mountains and white snow to bring out the grey effect throughout. This film is
an amalgamation of several literary works. I felt it was made by a
literary critic instead of a filmmaker, hence not a literal adaptation. The script
felt like an analysis of Hamlet and many scenes like the enactment of the analysis.
Like I felt that Shahid’s epitomic monologue was a lot inspired by Manto’s Toba
Tek Singh—his
lunacy, more so because of the Kashmir (India–Pakistan) backdrop was more like
Toba Tek Singh’s than Hamlet’s.
His chutzpah was like Singh’s oper-de-rumble-dumble. This reading is further strengthened when
Haider says, “Jiska law hai, uska order.
India-Pakistan ne milkar khela humse border-border. Ab na hume chodde
Hindustan, aur na hume chhode Pakistan.” This depiction of lying on the
border is very strongly felt here. Kashmir and border is personified as Haider,
it’s more about Kashmir’s identity crisis than Haider’s existential
crisis. ‘Hum hai ke hum nahi’ was very blandly translated—it
couldn’t achieve the existential crisis too well, but don’t think that was the
idea also. It was consciously more about Kashmir than Haider’s head at that
moment.
Imageries play a great role in Bhardwaj’s films.
The use of a red muffler in this one is very interesting. It symbolizes many
things. Woven for her father by Arshia, it is the only colour in the grey
valley-symbolizing love.
A love that holds her father from hurting Haider—a love that binds
Haider from resorting to killing for the purpose of achieving inteqaam for his father. The scene where
Haider successfully kills a person for the first time (the two jesters/ Salmans),
Bhardwaj cleverly emphasizes on untying of the muffler. It can be paralleled to the red handkerchief
in Othello when Pervez/Polonius finds out about the whereabouts of Haider by
tracing the muffler. After Haider kills Parvez (Arshia’s father), this muffler
becomes a symbol of heart-ache, of broken heartedness. Arshia gets engulfed by
this pain so much that the same love becomes venom and every thread of wool-a
snake. She unwinds the very muffler and spreads all the threads of wool over
her body like the asps Cleopatra have over her when she commits suicide in
Antony and Cleopatra.
I found the grave diggers singing, ‘aao na…’ very funny but guess that is
exactly what the film-maker wanted to depict—the humour behind nothingness. The
hawk cap Shahid wore during Ghazala’s second wedding, lent a theatrical value
to those scenes—which
was pleasing to the eyes. Also, it is interesting how the camera zooms on a book
by PD James kept on the shelf when Ghazala is telling Khurram about militants staying
at her house. It hints that a crime is about to hatch.
Haider’s digging out a skull from the grave didn’t
go down well with me. It seemed useless to do that towards the end. It wasn’t his
father’s grave either. Can anyone help me know what did it symbolise, if anything
at all?
Shahid has acted well in the scenes which had some
melodrama. Like the monologue and in songs like bismil, etc. Otherwise, I felt
he carried a straight face throughout the movie. He could do better in portraying
the confusion in the initial scenes of the film. Instead, he looked like a guy
who has had a terrible break-up, exactly how he looked in Jab we Met.
The love song in the middle of an intense story
felt out of place. I doubt a guy going through such depressing times in his
life, wants to dance around the trees suddenly. It is irksome for the viewer. We
want the story to proceed.
Tabu is marvelous, every expression is so nuanced.
I couldn’t let my eyes off her. The nuance with which she played a woman who is desired by her husband, brother-in-law, and her son, was phenomenal. What a smart
depiction of Oedipus complex and that underlying incestuous desire- “tu jab chhota tha na toh mere aur apney
abbaji ke beech mein aakar sojata tha aur kehta tha Moji mein bada ho kar aapsey
nikah karoonga.” Sniffing of the itr, that incomplete kiss, it does
exactly what it has to, while saving the film from a ban.
(You have to keep
those things in mind in this country.)
Though everyone has got the Kashmiri accent more
or less right, but Tabu is fabulous. I love the way she says, “Doctrr saaab.” K.K. Menon is found
struggling with the accent and over-acting in a few scenes.
Irrfan Khan did well with his short role. He could
have been better used though.
I loved the way Bhardwaj turned his witches into
policemen in Maqbool. Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah were exceptional as the
witches making prophecies. A dialogue that you always remember from Maqbool is
a shared one by the witches-“Aag ko paani
ka darr hamesha baney rehna chahiye.”
Unfortunately, the ghost in Haider fails in making
a similar impact on the audiences’ mind. Roohdaar (Irrfan) is launched in a
grand way into the film, just before the interval, but has been made to do close to
nothing. The jail story is very tedious and makes you feel, “don’t know where
but I’ve seen a similar scene before.” The resonating dialogue, “Haider mera inteqaam lena...” is still
better. But the ghost wasn’t impressive enough, alas! Nor does the film
emphatically shows, that the real ghost is in Haider’s mind.
The climax won my heart. Despite that, I feel that it
sort of sidelines the realism which was tried to follow throughout the film by
glorifying Tabu as the sacrificing heroine. It at the same time breaks the
norms of conventional realism in films and introduces something new—dramatic realism. I know they are oxymoron but it
seemed realistic that a woman/mother who even Haider thinks is completely self–centered,
at the end turns out to be true about all those warnings about killing herself
- which Haider thought were shallow. Her love for her son, which seems fake at
one point, is real. Her suicide only strengthens Hilal Meer’s ulterior purpose
in not wanting to send his son to Aligarh and giving refuge to militants in his
house.
Just that I found the superimposed theme of,
revenge begets revenge a little too clichéd and idealistic. I mean this wasn’t at
all in Hamlet, at least not in the simple reading. I chide myself for comparing
it again, back to square one huh! And I begin to explain Haider’s actions. So
Bhardwaj’s Hamlet is smarter, who when his Moji commits suicide, realizes that
his azaadi is not in inteqaam. It is in knowing himself; hence
he does not kill Khurram. The end makes sense because the backdrop is Kashmir –
would have been a little preachy otherwise. Nevertheless, it was a well-thought-out
film. I think one of the best ones this year.
