Review of Haider / हैदर, directed by Vishal Bardwaj

When I was a sophomore in college, I signed up for a 200 level film class that was across disciplines: Bollywood and the Making of the India. It was a mix between a film class, where we just watched movies, but then it was taught through the slant of political science, nationalism, and then breaking down the movies within these set parameters.

Naturally, we had to watch Haider during this class, as it was inevitable the ongoing conflict in Jammu and Kashmir was going to come into our discussions in a political science class about contemporary India.

Anyways, I was feeling nostalgia and preparing my application for an Indian Fulbright—hope you all cross your fingers for me, as this application consists of my blood, sweat, and tears at this point.

At the time of writing this, the movie was available on Netflix to watch, and I love how Netflix manages to nab all of these really good Indian movies that were once big when in theaters. So I rewatched the movie, which was a time considering I had forgotten some of the finer details.

Here’s my review!

Haider returns home to Kashmir and sets out to discover the truth behind his father’s disappearance.

If there’s one thing to know about watching this movie, it’s that it is heavily based on the Shakespeare play Hamlet. If you’re going into this blind beforehand and notice a ton of similarities and parallels between the doomed play, that’s why.

The entire plot pretty much mirrors the plot of Hamlet, so it can be predictable in some ways, but also very much unique due to the context this text translates in the Kashmiri and Indian context.

The protagonist of the movie is Haider, whose father, in 1995, is a doctor working in the midst of the insurgency. He decides to perform surgery on a local terrorist group, but his first misstep is he does it in his house.

His wife questions his motives, and when the military starts a raid the next day, Haider’s father is said to be harboring terrorists, and he is taken away after the terrorist leader is killed. The house is then bombed. His father vanishes.

Time passes, and Haider returns home from his university, where he studies to be a writer. He starts asking questions about his father’s disappearance, and doesn’t get any answers.

His mother is now buddies with his uncle, his father’s younger brother, and Haider decides to take matters into his own time. He searches the town for a lead on where his father might have been taken. He begins to begin tight with a childhood sweetheart that’s become a journalist in the meantime.

When she runs into a strange man who might have information, Haider contacts the man, Roohdaar. He is a member of a separatist Kashmiri group, and when he was in prison, he knew of Haider’s father being there.

They were imprisoned in the same camp together and were slated to be executed, but this man survived and was able to pass on the final wishes of his father.

Supposedly, he wanted Haider to get revenge against his uncle, who was one of ones who formed the militia that imprisoned him. It was a setup.

Haider goes mad with this information, and shaves his head and begins acting erratically in public. He holds demonstrations against the government, and his uncle tries to tell him Roohdaar was behind his father’s death.

Haider doesn’t know what to do about this information, and suddenly no one can be trusted. When he acquires a gun to kill his uncle, he decides not to kill him after seeing his uncle praying, but then Haider is arrested by the police.

He then escapes prison, kills the two guards—who were his friends when he was younger—and then contacts Roohdaar, who tells him to go to Pakistan to get training. He calls his mother, who informs him she wants to meet. She claims her innocence there, and the police chief finds him there with her and tries to kill him.

Haider gets to him first. Haider’s lover, the daughter of the police chief, kills herself. Haider then realizes that she killed herself and interrupts the procession, which then leads to more bloody conflict.

His mother tells him that revenge is cycle, but does not listen. She then goes to his uncle’s men and detonates a suicide vest.

Haider gets ready to kill him, but remembers his mother’s final words. He leaves his uncle alive, gravely injured by the blast, and walks away.

Overall Thoughts

Haider is such a loaded movie to watch, especially if you’re not aware of the major sociopolitical tensions happening throughout it. I knew about it going into it and it was still pretty intense to watch during its running time.

There are so many layers as well to compare it to Hamlet, especially considering how the British colonized India, and Haider’s descent into madness is one of the most striking parts of the movie if I’m going to be honest.

It’s a fascinating film, though. I’m glad I revisited it.

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