![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Haider (2014)
Is an exquisite, exquisite gem although not for the faint of heart. It's the best Hamlet adaption I've ever seen and I am both a Shakespeare nerd and married to one. Haider is third in director Bhardwaj's trilogy after Maqbool (2003) and Omkara (2006)... Macbeth and Othello respectively. I will definitely try to see Maqbool, not sure I would survive Omkara.
Directed and co-written by Vishal Bhardwaj with Basharat Peer (author of Curfewed Night, a memoir of the ongoing anti-India insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir). Haider is set in Kashmir in the mid-90s where the ongoing anti-India insurgency in Kashmir has resulted in a massive Indian security presence, insurgency by multiple militarised groups, and Kashmiri youths crossing into Pakistan for arms and training. The violence and human rights violations killed tens of thousands.
Some of the fun is in learning who plays what roles as you watch so I'll skip any recap and just say it's brutal, well-paced, beautifully adapted and very, very well written. The women have much richer roles and more agency, and the ghost's truth is cruelly multi-layered, transforming the revenge narrative into something a little more complex. The scarf, the mousetrap, the flashbacks. Wow.
Directed and co-written by Vishal Bhardwaj with Basharat Peer (author of Curfewed Night, a memoir of the ongoing anti-India insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir). Haider is set in Kashmir in the mid-90s where the ongoing anti-India insurgency in Kashmir has resulted in a massive Indian security presence, insurgency by multiple militarised groups, and Kashmiri youths crossing into Pakistan for arms and training. The violence and human rights violations killed tens of thousands.
Some of the fun is in learning who plays what roles as you watch so I'll skip any recap and just say it's brutal, well-paced, beautifully adapted and very, very well written. The women have much richer roles and more agency, and the ghost's truth is cruelly multi-layered, transforming the revenge narrative into something a little more complex. The scarf, the mousetrap, the flashbacks. Wow.