Haider (Dir. Vishal Bharadwaj, 2014)

(Reviewed 4/5 in October 2014 on letterboxd.com)

I was encouraged to watch this film today after reading about the controversy surrounding it's supposedly anti-India and pro-separatist viewpoint but after watching it, found the controversy to be nothing but a storm in a tea cup as usual. (SPOILER BEGIN) By denying Haider's father his revenge, Bharadwaj clearly makes his position clear within the context of this film (SPOILER END). As far as Bharadwaj's attempt to adapt Hamlet,  I thought there were some great points: firstly Bharadwaj gives the character of Gertrude (Gazala in this film) more scope and very skillfully explores it's complexity. Tabu does a brilliant job essaying this character. Also the Oedipus complex aspect is more pronounced in this film than one finds by reading the play itself. There are some humorous bits like the Salman Khan fans as the clowns and even the small scene with the gravediggers which I thought was well done. Now coming to the less satisfying parts, I feel Bharadwaj muddles his film by trying to bring in a morality viewpoint to Haider's (Hamlet's) quest for revenge. He takes it to a point in the climax where "To be or not to be" doesn't even remain a question for Haider which I found a little difficult to digest as a Hamlet admirer but at the same time feels significant within the context of the film to emphasize Bharadwaj's pro-peace message to the audience. How successful he was in doing it remains debatable. I also found the insertion of the romantic song sequence completely unnecessary and it unfortunately took away the intensity that was being built up. The final title about the number of Kashmiri's who have died/disappeared (I forget which) felt irrelevant but was perhaps inserted to keep the Kashmir angle which I felt should have simply stayed as the backdrop, which to be fair it does for the most part.  I think overall it is still a pretty darn good film and might just grow on me further in some time.