Haider

A film set in Kashmir in 1995. Haider is studying in Aligarh. No word comes from his father and he goes home. His father was a doctor. He took a wounded man into his house, the army raided it that night, and he was taken away; the house was destroyed and he has been missing since. His mother is close to his uncle. Haider sees it and begins to ask. From there the film is a search. Records of the disappeared, police stations, a prison list, and women who get no answer. A term appears in the film. The expression half-widow, used for women whose husbands are missing without a death certificate, sits at the centre of the narrative. Then a man turns up. Roohdaar says he was in prison with his father and brings a message: the man was informed on by his own brother. Haider cannot confirm it. Who the man is and whether he is telling the truth stay uncertain, and the film deliberately does not resolve it. What the narrative is interested in is not revenge but the cycle: in its last section the film opens revenge itself to argument, and one of the characters says so directly. The source is Hamlet. It is the director's third Shakespeare adaptation and this time the text is carried straight into a zone of conflict. The narrative also rests on a documentary source. The screenplay draws on the memoir of a writer who worked as a journalist in Kashmir, and on his co-authorship. The graveyard scene is its best known section. Two men digging a grave sing, and the scene carries the equivalent from the play. Ghazala is the narrative's centre of gravity. The mother is not a supporting figure here and the ending is in her hands. The film caused argument in India; there were calls for a boycott over its depiction of the army and its view of the region. Shahid Kapoor, Tabu, Kay Kay Menon and Shraddha Kapoor are in the cast. Vishal Bhardwaj directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes Shakespeare adaptations and political Indian cinema. Who it is not for: anyone looking for something light; the narrative is heavy, the running time long, and there is no softening of the subject.