Reviews

Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider (2014) is a modern-day retelling of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, intricately woven into the political and cultural fabric of 1995 Kashmir. Co-written with Basharat Peer and inspired by his memoir Curfewed Night, the film elevates the Shakespearean tragedy with a haunting portrayal of love, betrayal, revenge, and moral ambiguity against the backdrop of a conflict-ridden Valley.

The song ‘Bismil’, performed amidst the grandeur of the Martand Sun Temple, is a cinematic masterpiece. Seamlessly fusing Kashmiri folk elements with a theatrical flair,

In the delicate space where brilliance and madness collide, can one truly exist without the other? Is the quest for perfection a gift or a curse, and how does it shape us? The genius, often celebrated for their extraordinary ability to perceive the world with unfiltered clarity, simultaneously grapples with the isolation of their mind. Nietzsche, in ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’, argued that the Übermensch must endure the loneliness of their path, a solitude that drives them toward madness or, at the very least, emotional desolation.

Mr. Monk, in his obsessive pursuit of perfection, becomes both the observer and the observed, teetering on the edge of brilliance and madness.