Director – Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Cast – Sadia, Adil Khan, Zain Khan Durrani, Priyanshu Chatterjee, and more.
IMDb Rating – 3.9/10
Set in the beautiful valley of Kashmir, this intriguing movie will take you on a ride that is filled with emotions, empathy, tragedy, and catharsis of pain.
Shikara is an enchanting piece of art that will take you through the lives and struggles of Kashmiri Pandits who were caught in the middle of dirty political agendas. The movie is terrifically crafted both emotionally and regionally as it shows the story of a young couple who just got married and have built a house they love to the core of their house.
When you play on the trailer, it shows a long struggle and violence and all the atrocities the community had to go through in 1990 and 1991. Yes, the backbone of the story is the same but it is not entirely about it. This is one reason that is laid back in the movie. The trailer takes the expectation from the movie in a completely different direction. This may be a practice to attract more commercial success rather than displaying the masterpiece they have created.
The issue has been extremely sensitive to the nerve and could have led to the banning of the movie by the political powers for their personal agendas. Thus the movie that revolves around the issue is not a complete story of the tragedy that victimized more than 400,000 people of the Kashmiri Pandit clan. Anyway, this is impossible to depict the ordeal and millions of stories in a movie.
Shikara is primarily and entirely a film based on the lives of a young couple who are terribly in love. The Kashmiri Pandit couple Shiv and Shanti played by Adil Khan and Sadia with utter innocence dripping out of their faces. The film speaks out their tale of love and a turmoil of pain in the simplest and most beautiful way. The couple along with thousands of other people of their clan had to leave their house, the one they had built with utmost love and piece of their heart and go away. The pain of leaving their life behind can be seen in their tears and incredible screenplay. The name of the movie is the name of their house Shikara.
As they mark the start of their devastating journey, the two are strength by each other’s love and togetherness when there is nothing in the world that they can home anymore. The two young actors did an incredible job and most of its share goes to the director to bring out to light the topic that had been fading out with the new generation.
Vidu Vindo Chopra created a remarkable masterpiece that astonishes us with his incredible skill. Starting from the cinematography, the stunning and serene valley, the fantastic music, the costumes, and the screen presence of Adil Khan and Sadia is everything that will captivate you. The way they put to display their innocence on the cue is fantastic and admirable, bring out the essence of the film in the perfect sense. The poetry and dialogues used in the film speak out to touch your heart straight away and makes you feel the pain in a mere span of minutes.
Vidu Vindo Chopra touched one of the most sensitive nerve-wracking topics of the country and presented it with such grace. It is believed that the movie if the outcome of personal emotions and tragedy, Chopra and his mother had to face.
His mother and he lived in Kashmir and they were forced to leave their house behind with no recognition of when will they ever be able to come back.
His mother, who he had given credits for the movie, in the end, was a victim of the times that showered atrocities on the heads of 4,00,000 people.
The movie is not an explicit show of bloodshed and violence rather is conducted on the struggle and catharsis of emotion the people had to go through as they were forced out of their houses and their world. No, the movie does not highlight any Hindu-Muslim riot but strictly focuses on the life of this young couple who symbolically are displaying thousands of others who had been through it.
Mr. Chopra has brought out the issue that had gone down and the newer generation, who have no idea about the terrible heartaches the Kashmiri pundits had to go through who could never go back home.
In the end, when Adil Khan, playing Shiv comes back to his home, the kids in the neighborhood surround him and told him that they have never seen how a Kashmiri Pandit looks like and the moment was devastating for both the viewers and Shiv.
Ending up, if you wish to see a lot of riot, violence, and bloodshed, you would have to wait for another director to create a movie on the same issue, but if you wish to understand the pain through a simple love story, get the books of your ticket. P.S. The movie is terrific and definitely a must-watch.
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