#MyHaiderstatus This wasnt a movie I was going to wait to see, not with everyone posting about it: mostly love, a little hate, tons of malice. Because everyone was writing about what it was: a socio-political statement on Kashmirs troubled history, an indictment of the armed forces, a a collection of star performances lead by the long awaited break-out turn of Kay Kay Menon weve been promised for years, an adaptation of Shakespeares Hamlet, a stunningly delicate painting in blood and snow by cinematographer Pankaj Kumar, a sloppily constructed tribute to Oedipal angst, a great take on To be or Not to be, a unique interpretation/travesty of the fathers ghost, a wasted Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the beautiful puppetry of Ishara, the poetry of Faiz, a devastating takedown on Lal Chowk, AFSPA, chutzpah. If I had waited I would not have been able to see beyond all these ideas, and I wouldnt have been able to see anything with all these ideas wrestling for space in my conscious (and unusually for an Indian movie, almost no mention of the music). What it was for me, first of all, was an excuse exciting enough to go to the cinema with my my mom and dad, which I hadnt done in more than two years. It was more exciting because at just the moment I told my mom that my teacher Ashwath Bhatt, whom I dearly love, was in the film, he appeared on screen and held the whole frame still, impossible to ignore. Theres a great pleasure in seeing a story you know well re-interpreted, seeing the motivations change, especially Hamlets indecision as the result of unreliable intelligence, which I thought was brilliant, but unexpectedly knowing the tragedy so well eliminates the power of the tragedy, because you know whats coming and can marvel at the beauty of its delivery as headlines are carved out of headstones. All it was, though, was my own experience of a story that bordered far too close to the truth, which is what seems to frighten people, and at the same time the only thing that gets a real reaction about this life, and thats worth my time.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 11:56:14 +0000