Haider

Haider is a 2014 Indian Hindi language crime drama film directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, and co-written by Basharat Peer and Bhardwaj. It stars Shahid Kapoor as the titular protagonist; and co-stars Tabu, Shraddha Kapoor and Kay Kay Menon, with Irrfan Khan making a special appearance. The film is a modern-day adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, set amidst the insurgency-hit Kashmir conflicts of 1995 and civilian disappearances.[3] Haider, a poet, returns to Kashmir at the peak of the conflict to seek answers about his disappeared father and ends up tugged into the politics of the state.[4]

Haider is the third installment of Bhardwaj's Shakespearean trilogy after Maqbool (2003) and Omkara (2006).[5] The film was screened at the 19th Busan International Film Festival,[6] and released worldwide on October 2, 2014 to wide critical acclaim, and garnered attention from the media due to its controversial subject matter.[4]Post its theatrical run, it was declared hit by Box Office India.[7]

The direction, performances of Tabu and Shahid Kapoor, screenplay, film score and editing received special praise.

Plot

In 1995, during the Kashmir conflict, Hilaal Meer, a doctor agrees to perform an appendicitis operation on the leader of a pro-separatist group. To avoid detection, he performs the operation at his house, much to the chagrin of his wife Ghazala, who questions his allegiance. The next day, during a military raid, Hilaal Meer is accused of harboring terrorists. A shootout ensues at his home, during which the leader of the separatist group is killed and Hilaal is taken away for questioning. The doctor's house is bombed subsequently in order to kill any other militant hiding in there. Several days later, Hilaal and Ghazala's son, Haider, returns from his university to seek answers about his father's disappearance. Upon arrival, he is shocked to find his mother singing and laughing along with her brother-in-law Khurram. Unable to understand his mother's behaviour, he begins searching for his father in various police stations and detention camps with the help of his fiancee Arshia, a journalist.

Depressed by the growing closeness between Ghazala and Khurram, and unable to find any leads, Haider begins to lose hope. However, Arshia encounters a stranger, Roohdar, who asks her to inform Haider that he will be able to provide information about Hilaal. Haider contacts Roohdar, who turns out to be part of a separatist group. Roohdar then narrates the story of how he met Hilaal in one of the detention centers, where they both were tortured. Hilaal attributes his imprisonment to his brother, Khurram. Roohdaar tells Haider that he simply wanted to pass on his father's message to him: revenge for Khurram's betrayal. Thereafter, angry and swearing to avenge his father's death, Haider becomes mentally and emotionally scattered and starts to behave and act strangely. His uncle Khurram, after getting to know about the meeting of Haider and Roohdar, narrates to him that Roohdar has killed his father. He is in dual mind as to whose narration he should believe. He discloses his state of indecision to Arshia and also states that Roohdar has given him a gun to kill his uncle. Arshia unintentionally discloses to her father who informs Khurram about the gun. Khurram immediately orders his men to send Haider to a mental institution.

Next morning Haider is all set to kill his uncle but cannot accomplish it because his uncle is in prayers and then is captured by Arshia's father who orders to kill him but Haider manages to escape. He contacts Roohdaar, who suggests getting trained in Pakistan to avenge for his father's death and Haider agrees. He calls his mother and informs her about it to which she asks him to meet her once before going to the other side of border. During the meet, Ghazala discloses that she had disclosed about terrorists hiding in their house out of fear to Khurram unknowing that he was an informer of the Indian army. Arshia's father traces them and is about to shoot Haider when Haider shoots him in the head and escapes.

Tormented from her father's death at the hands of Haider, Arshia is deeply hurt and commits suicide. Meanwhile Ghazala finds Roohdar's number from Arshia's diary and she calls him. Haider goes to his pickup point, i.e. the graveyard where his father was buried. At the graveyard, Haider contemplates about the universal nature of mortality. Unaware of Arshia's death, on seeing her brother in the graveyard it hits his mind that the body is of Arshi. He runs towards her body where his brother sees him and informs Khurram. A fight ensues between Haider and Arshia's brother resulting in Arshia's brother's death. Khurram arrives with full force and a gunfight ensues, meanwhile Roohdaar and Ghazala also arrive at the spot, where Roohdaar drops Ghazala. A fierce exchange of bullets and bombs leaves only Haider and few men on Khurram's side alive. Just when Khurram is about to kill Haider with a rocket launcher, Ghazala requests a chance to convince Haider to surrender. She, goes to Haider, confronts him but he says that he cannot die before avenging his father's death. Ghazala tells him that revenge only results in revenge and there is no ending to this cycle, but Haider who is determined to avenge his father's death does not understand. Ghazala kisses Haider, steps outside, only to reveal that she has been wearing a suicide vest. Khurram and Haider rush towards her but she pulls the pins of the hand grenade resulting in a big blast causing the death of the rest of the men and Khurram being gravely injured with his legs being amputated. Haider goes to his mother's remains, cries a lot and goes to Khurram in order to shoot him in the eyes as per his father's wish but is reminded of his mother's words "revenge only results in revenge" and thus decides to leave Khurram. Khurram begs Haider to kill him to free him from burden of guilt and to avenge his father's death but Haider doesn't kill and leaves.

Cast

Actor Role Based on

Shahid Kapoor Haider Meer[9] Prince Hamlet

Tabu Ghazala Meer Gertrude

Narendra Jha Dr. Hilal Meer King Hamlet

Irrfan Khan Roohdaar[10] Ghost

Kay Kay Menon Khurram Meer[11] Claudius

Shraddha Kapoor Arshia Lone[12] Ophelia

Kulbhushan Kharbanda Hussain Meer Fictitious

Lalit Parimoo Pervez Lone Polonius

Ashish Vidyarthi Brigadier T. S. Murthy[13] Fictitious

Aamir Bashir Liyaqat Lone Laertes

Sumit Kaul (Salman 1) Courtier Rosencrantz

Rajat Bhagat (Salman 2) Courtier Guildenstern

Ashwath Bhatt Zahoor Fortinbras

Muzamil Bhawani Ikhwani Commander Fictitious

Production[edit]

Development

Initially, Vishal Bhardwaj and Shahid Kapoor were in talks of making a sequel to their blockbuster film, Kaminey (2009).[14] The project was put on hold and a new project with Kapoor in the lead was confirmed, titled as Haider, which was reportedly based on an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.[15] The adaptation was made to portray the political intrigue and history of Kashmir as well as the play's sexual conflicts.[16] Bhardwaj was initially developing the play as a contemporary espionage thriller with author Stephen Alter.[17] They wrote a 30 page synopsis that was sent to Gulzar. Though Gulzar liked the synopsis but enquired Bhardwaj of the missing tragedy of Hamlet in the penned thriller. The synopsis had incomplete details about the life, authenticity and Official Secrets Act of RAW agents.[17] On his return to India, Bharadwaj's wife Rekha Bhardwaj was reading Basharat Peer's memoir, Curfewed Night, a book based on life in violence-wracked Kashmir. His wife was deeply moved after reading the book. Bharadwaj didn't immediately read the book but was aware about its content. Later, Bhardwaj desired to change the synopsis. Remembering Basharat's book, he contacted him and they started the work. [17] Bhardwaj quoted importance of Basharat in the film as, "If Basharat was not a part of the film, Haider wouldn’t be made or it wouldn’t be made this way."[17] The film is Peer's first film project. On co-scripting the same, he stated that writing Curfewed Night was a response to caricatures of Kashmiris in Indian political writing whereas he wrote Haider in the same spirit, with the same feeling with Bhardwaj.[18] Bhardwaj and he agonised a lot over the soliloquies required. There were sections of the To be, or not to be speech that was translated directly in Hindi. Due to constraints of time they had to omit the Apparel maketh a man soliloquy though.[18] They retained and translated the section where "Hamlet" meets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and speaks about Denmark being in prison. Further, new soliloquies were created to convey "Hamlet"'s madness and the veiled political satire in it.[18] This was brought in when "Haider" with his head shaved, dressed in torn, shabby clothes rants on a traffic roundabout in Srinagar and apart from a few senseless jokes, reads out the bare act of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.[18] Apart from this, Peer explained that an adaptation doesn't exactly follow the original, like the part of Fortinbras was barely there in Haider. The world of King Claudius and Polonius is portrayed as the counter-insurgency and government-run, counter-insurgent militias in Haider and thematically dominates the action.[18]

“ "It was the political turmoil and the 25 years of tragedy of Kashmir that compelled me. Our way of looking at Kashmir has either been cosmetic — only for shooting songs — or rhetoric, where we show a man in a phiran, holding a Kalashnikov. Haider is the first film where we see Kashmir from the inside. I don’t think we have made a mainstream film about the issue." ”

—Bhardwaj on setting Haider in Kashmir (in an interview with The Indian Express)[17]

As per the story of the book Hamlet, an oedipus complex exists that draws "Hamlet" (played by Shahid Kapoor) towards his mother "Gertrude" (played by Tabu) that could have been interpreted both at a physical and psychological level, however, Bhardwaj kept this reference subtle as the target audience was predominantly Indian and called it 'one of the aspects in this mother-son relationship.' In his previous outing of Othello's adaptation, Omkara (2006), he removed the last monologue due to the fact that it was more suited for a stage play sequence but retained that type of monologue for Haider. Shahid Kapoor learnt a six-page monologue for the climatic scene where his character "Haider" turns mad. He put forth the delivery of that monologue in front of a crowd of 5000 listening. For filming the scene, which was done in 3–4 hours, Shahid Kapoor was made completely bald.[19]

Sumit Kaul, who played the character of one of the Salman, he was involved in training the Kashmiri accent of actress Tabu apart from lead actors Shahid and Shraddha.[20] His portions of filming were canned in fifteen days, however, he was with the team for two and a half months in Kashmir.[20] He taught the nuances of the language especially when it translates into English or Hindi.[20] I sat with both Shahid and Shraddha tutored them in how to speak Hindi with Kashmiri touch. He also helped actress Tabu get the enunciation when she sang the folk song "Roshe Valle" that was a part of the film score.[20]

“ "Ghazala is torn between her idealistic husband, opportunistic brother-in-law and her innocent and passionate son. Somewhere she feels she has the responsibility to keep everything in control but obviously she can’t. Her love for her son is crazy. She is always trying to protect him from being misled and misguided. He (Bhardwaj) cast me as Shahid’s mother because he wanted the oddity of the relationship to come out which wouldn’t have come across with a regular aged mother and son combination. Haider shares a love/hate relationship with Ghazala but it’s a very passionate emotion. You almost feel odd that these two are mom and son. Haider’s predicament is that he doesn’t know what to do with his mother—whether to love her, hate her, believe her or kill her." ”

—Actress Tabu who plays the character "Ghazala", in an interview with The Indian Express.[21]

Kapoor, along with Bhardwaj and UTV Motion Pictures, each have a 33.3% share in the film. The budget for the film is INR390 million (US$6.1 million) taking into account INR240 million (US$3.8 million)[1] spent into the production of the film and INR150 million (US$2.4 million) for promotions.[22]

Dolly Ahluwalia has designed costumes for the film. She began working by creating Kashmiri designs of costumes in Delhi. When Vishal Bhardwaj and his film's cinematographer were doing a recce in the valley of Kashmir, she was there to share her creative vision with him. She took her sketches and swatches there.[23] After that, she returned to Delhi and continued with her work there. Instead of picking up costumes easily available in bazaars of Kashmir, she designed the phirans for Shahid Kapoor, hijabs and head scarves for both Shraddha Kapoor and Tabu.[23] Ahluwalia was quoted saying, "Somewhere along the way her husband disappears and she marries his brother who is wealthier than him and this change in marital status is explained through richer colors and fabrics."[23] She added that her real challenge was exploring the psyche of the character "Haider" through colors, textures and cuts. The signs of madness in his character are depicted through the in the pom-poms in his cap during the track "Bismil" that is a manifestation of the traditional folk dance Dumhal of the Kashmiri valley performed by Wattal tribes.[23] For the costumes seen in climax portions, she was quoted saying, "Against that white snow backdrop I stuck to black and reds to bring out the cold of the human mind through the cold snow and the death of romance in blood red hues."[23]

Filming

Shahid Kapoor performing the track "Bismil" at Martand Sun Temple

Haider was shot in two parts. The first schedule was in November–December 2013 and then next in January–February 2014. Keeping the weather conditions in consideration, the first part of the film is shot in Autumn-Winter and the second part featuring intense drama and action sequences under snow. The entire filming was completed in 54 days.[24]

Principal photography began at Dal lake in November 2013.[25] Haider was filmed at Pahalgam, Kehribal area in Anantnag, Mattan, Aishan Sahab Zaina Kadal Bridge in old Srinagar, Nishat Bagh, Dal Lake, Qazigund, Martand Sun Temple, Naseem Bagh (at Kashmir University Garden), Hazratbal and Sonamarg, all of which are located in Jammu and Kashmir[26][27][28] Bhardwaj was forced to pack up after a group of Kashmir University students disrupted shooting of a sequence of a Fedayeen attack which was being canned at the University of Kashmir at Hazratbal.[29] The students objected to the hoisting of the national flag atop a makeshift bunker. A few students objected to the shooting of a few scenes and started pro-freedom slogans, dismantling the stage. The youngsters also forced them out of the shooting location in Naseem Bagh (Kashmir University Garden) despite heavy security, claiming that they had no idea about the shoot happening on that location.[30][31] Students of University raised also objection to Irrfan Khan when he was spotted smoking inside the campus.[32] The last schedule of filming for 'Haider' began in Kashmir in January 2014.[33][34][35][36] For the song "Bismil" that was shot at Martand Sun Temple in Kashmir, Shahid Kapoor was quoted saying, "It is one of the best shot songs of my career. The location, the elements like face paint to depict war situations, have been used in 'Bismil'. Then there are 100 feet tall puppets, which I have never seen in any song before."[37] For the choreography Bhardwaj was very keen that Shahid's character didn't have any dance movements that Shahid did in his previous films as it was required for the character’s angst and feelings. Bhardwaj recruited a Norway-based choreographer for the choreography of this track.[37] The shooting of the film was also halted briefly for a second time in Zainakadal in Srinagar in January 2014, when a spectator threw coal towards the actors.[38][39] Filming was completed by 24 February 2014.[40]