With HAIDER, Vishal does manage to answer his strong opponents with a sheer poetry on the screen in terms of narration, execution and performances. A film based on HAMLET which happens to be one of the most complex plays written by William Shakespeare tweaked with his own master strokes taking the storyline into the breathtaking Kashmir, successfully completing his Shakespeare Trilogy in a time span of a little more than a decade. A gem in cinematic terms for sure which forces you to forget his last two duds instantly. And a film which brings back the beautiful Tabu on the silver screen after a long gap who truly is one of the finest actors of our times without any slightest of doubt.
No doubt HAIDER scores much above the director's recent attempts in comparison and breaks several grounds in visualizing a difficult subject on the screen like never before. But along with that another hard and blunt truth remains that the film fails to find that fine balance between meaningful and entertaining cinema as earlier cherished by we all in Vishal's MAQBOOL or OMKARA. And thus is not able to surpass the first two parts of the trilogy in my personal opinion.
In other words, yes HAIDER is indeed a brilliant film made by the visionary director for a certain section of viewers, but not as brilliant as MAQBOOL and OMKARA which were unanimously acclaimed by viewers all over quite deservingly. The film has it superb well- conceived highs in its various sequences coming at regular intervals but at the same time has a few major lows too (in its second half) which eventually take the magic away leaving the general public confused and annoyed majorly because of an over-stretched too classy end with some strange theatrical additions.
No doubt HAIDER scores much above the director's recent attempts in comparison and breaks several grounds in visualizing a difficult subject on the screen like never before. But along with that another hard and blunt truth remains that the film fails to find that fine balance between meaningful and entertaining cinema as earlier cherished by we all in Vishal's MAQBOOL or OMKARA. And thus is not able to surpass the first two parts of the trilogy in my personal opinion.
In other words, yes HAIDER is indeed a brilliant film made by the visionary director for a certain section of viewers, but not as brilliant as MAQBOOL and OMKARA which were unanimously acclaimed by viewers all over quite deservingly. The film has it superb well- conceived highs in its various sequences coming at regular intervals but at the same time has a few major lows too (in its second half) which eventually take the magic away leaving the general public confused and annoyed majorly because of an over-stretched too classy end with some strange theatrical additions.