The premise of the movie was no surprise, it’s disturbing and it’s based over true events and something that is close to the heart of Vidhu Vinod Chopra our director but then it’s also about the most beautiful, scenic Kashmir and here is where the entire difference lies. Even though the movie is on and off Kashmir but the Kashmiriat is kept intact by our central protagonists, it has been embedded into them for each and every frame.
Now Vidhu Vinod Chopra is veteran in our industry making amazing movies from last 3+ decades for now, but when it comes to handling his stories one can draw stark comparisons be it Parida in 1989 or Shikara in 2020. Like whatever be the city, which in case Parida was Bombay and Kashmir for Shikara he has a knack to have birds-eye-view pans for giving us scale. Only now in 2020, he has drones at his disposal and those pans are now more dramatic.
Another feather upon his hat is his in face close-ups within cars that carry you in veins of his characters as you feel very personal with them.
His handling of the screenplay has his signature, where the histories of his protagonists are always interwoven at places where they are called for that exemplifies the narration and you ride off the sine wave of drama he has in-store for you.
Now Shikara is projecting the plight of Kashmiri Pandits a sect of people who had to make an exodus off Kashmir because of civil unrest in the year of 1990. Now when we have a controversial premise it is highly important to maintain a delicate balance between depicting the facts in a way that you get a holistic sense of the problem but without any sort of bias which could make you pick sides. For me that’s the beauty of Shikara I haven’t seen such an innocent and delicate movie over such inflammable topic before.
Aadil Khan and Sadia Khateeb playing Shiv Kumar Dhar and Shanti Dhar are couple fighting the odds this situation has put them into with a hope of finding the light at the other side of the tunnel. The focal point of our couple is about getting back to their precious home in Kashmir.
Without giving away everything in my thoughts here I would just like to concentrate over 2 sequences from Shikara that compelled me to pick up pen and paper here.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra shot above sequence with no stone unturned its elaborate at 5 mins as the calf above is helped to stay back as the owner feels it’s too arduous for a calf to travel. Mr. Chopra then goes for a long shot with panning across the valley of Kashmir where there are buses full of people moving out of the city. It’s just his pain which pours out on frames here. Animals are better off than humans as there is no religion to dictate.
The second one is towards the end of the movie, where our Shiv Kumar Dhar who is a teacher by profession is shown sitting and writing when his students make an entry, post some discussion Mr. Dhar asks the purpose of their visit to which a particular kid replies that some of my friends here have not seen how a Kashmiri Pandit looks I bought them here to show you. That’s my friend is gut-wrenching with the expressions of Mr. Dhar, his surreal smile is captured with such brilliance that it completely tears you apart.
Finally the melancholy is also made more impactful with AR Rahman’s music for which I don’t have any words, I would just like you to feel it yourselves.
All the images of the post are extracted from the trailer here
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