10 REASONS TO GET HIGH ON HAIDER THIS WEEKEND!!

Vishal Bhardwaj has always been an eccentric genius. Barring the shockingly boring Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola and the confusingly weird 7 Khoon Maaf, Vishal's body of work screams of Shakespearean brilliance - apart from the endearing Makdee and The Blue Umbrella, Vishal understood Shakespeare like noone else had ever imagined, and recreated the bard's classics in the Indian milieu, in the form of Maqbool and Omkara - both utterly brilliant. And then he made Kaminey, which proved that if Shakespeare could rock in India, so could another English genius - Guy Ritchie.

A couple of mistakes later, Vishal probably felt that it was time to return to home turf, back to good ol' Bill Shakespeare. And he does so with Haider, that hit the screens on October 2. And with that, Bhardwaj doesn't just make a comeback - he redefines the whole concept of conventional storytelling. And Shahid Kapoor redefines the art of acting - leaving every single one of us who ever doubted his skills with jaws wide open.

As you'd know by now, Haider is an adaptation of Shakespeare's most tragic play, Hamlet, set in the peak of insurgency in mid-90s Kashmir. We're not going to tell you the tale, because this film is more than just the plot.

Don't waste your time banging' your head otherwise. Here are MangoJoos' 10 Reasons to get High on Haider.

10. The slow, rising trip

Now don't get us wrong. Yes, the movie moves slowly, and it might feel at times that it's moving at a snail pace. But that's exactly the beauty of it. Bhardwaj is in no hurry to reveal what's in store in the second half, so he takes his own time to keep layering the story in the first half. With a few tense moments placed almost at equal intervals from each other, the first half of Haider slowly builds up the tension, like a slow rising fever, like a mellow trip, and lets all hell break loose when it reaches the crescendo. The tension that builds over time results in a few internal bursts for those who are watching the second half, and just breaks you from inside at the climax.

9. Kashmir has never looked this beautiful. EVER.

It wouldn't be surprising to know that cinematographer Pankaj Kumar's previous project was the mystically gorgeous Ship of Theseus, wherein he proved that you don't need the big bucks to make a visually stunning film. And when you have a big budget?

Pankaj puts an extreme amount of visual detail into every panorama, every vantage point, every wide landscape, every tight portrait, every snowflake, every drop of blood painting the white canvas with splashes of red, and the list seems to go on forever. There isn't one scene we can single out as the most beautiful of them all. Oh wait, the climactic sequence, where Kashmir is enveloped in a blanket of white, yet the mood is terribly, terribly dark. It's a sight to behold.

8. Poetic, quite literally

Vishal Bhardwaj has always loaded every script and screenplay of his with power-house dialogues, making the character rise above what he was initially intended to be. And what we're dealing with here is a Shakespearean script, and a character who is supposed to have studied poetry at Aligarh University. And this particular Shakespearean script contains a phrase that has become a part of world culture: "To be or not to be." You can't go wrong with this one.

Symbolism-laden dialogues, tension-filled monologues and soliloquies - expect every word spoken in the word to have a deeper, poetic meaning.

Sample this:

"Dil ki agar sunu toh tu hai... Dimag ki sunu toh tu hai nahi. Jaan lun ki Jaan dun? Main rahoon ki main nahi?"

7. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

Vengeance is a concept done to death in Bollywood, since the late 70s and the 80s. Yet, how do you paint a fresh revenge-laden picture with elements that have haunted a beautiful state and its country for decades? Therein, lies the beauty of Haider. Bhardwaj, along with noted journalist Basharat Peer scripts a terrific story of vengeance, mixed with the cross-border tension in Kashmir. Together, they bring out the hidden agendas of others who thrive on the emotions of the innocent, and in this context - how militant groups brainwash young boys and drive them to the point of insanity to destroy everything in their path, without an iota of mercy. What they try to convey is that in any story, violence only begets more violence (like the oft-repeated dialogue in the movie itself).

6. The Mani Ratnam influence

Mani Ratnam, the cinematic auteur, is known for his natural characters whose dialogues seem right out of real life, with a subtle poetic tone. The treatment of those characters is such that the actors are just allowed to be in the frame, with most of their dialogues improvised, letting the characters play the tension off each other. There is one particular scene in Haider like many others, where Haider(Shahid Kapoor) and his mother Ghazala(Tabu) are walking down a street filled with foliage, and noone else around. Haider tells his mother how she always uses emotional blackmail to have her way, while she tells him In every story, I am the only villain, isn't it?'

Mind you, this is almost a 10-minute sequence, shot in a single shot without any cuts. Props to the actors for being able to pull it off, but this particular scene requires complete control over the cinematic craft, because the chances are that if not executed properly, such a sequence could end up falling flat on its face.

5. Like Mother, Love Son?

The original Hamlet features the concept of the Oedipus Complex', wherein the son is drawn towards his mother on physical and psychological level. But how do you show an incest reference in a mainstream Indian film, where the target audience is predominantly Indian? Bhardwaj cleverly, subtly keeps the reference and portrays the mother-son relationship in a completely believable, yet sometimes cringe-inducing manner, like no other Indian film has ever even attempted to do.

4. The Bismil' sequence

If any movie warrants a song to explain its story, it's Bismil'. Shot in a spectacular fashion at the Martland Sun Temple at Anantnag, Bismil is like an electric rock opera, that explains the entire tale of defiance, with so many symbolisms buried deep in its lyrics as well as its visual representation, that we lost count. With blacks and reds against the white snow background, the song explores the psyche of the character who has been left fatherless through an act of defiance, and is crossing over to the dark side. Apparently, the white snow depicts the cold of the human mind, the dark red hues represent the death of romance and the paint on Haider's face stands for a situation of war, the one in Kashmir as well as the one of life.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

3. Kay Kay Menon and Tabu

On one side, you have a sweet-on-the surface bureaucrat with subtle hints of pure evil. On the other side, you have a seemingly helpless mother, a half-widow' who turns out to be a strong, self-righteous woman tied to the emotions of her child. There are so many grey shades in both of these characters, that they keep you guessing. And to pull of such intense characters, you need people who know their shit. Tabu is at her absolute best in Haider, and delivers a rock-solid performance. But Kay Kay Menon, where was he all these years? Every once in a while he graces all of us with a kick-ass performance, and then vanishes into thin air. Menon is probably one of the most under-rated actors in the industry, and he shows you exactly what he's made of in Haider.

2. Shahid Kapoor, the phoenix.

If there was one word to describe Shahid Kapoor, it would be surprise'. We know that the boy (can't call him that anymore) is capable of giving a good performance, if he gets enough time to not indulge himself in ridiculous romantic comedies that even he doesn't really care about. But every once in a while, and especially under the wing of Vishal Bhardwaj, Shahid Kapoor surprises us. He shocks us. He shows us the finger.

But with Haider, he transcends to a height where others won't be able to see him anymore. The phrase <random actor> has given his career best' is an oft repeated one, but this time, the phrase holds completely true. This is the best performance Shahid has ever given in his career, and will probably give in the next 7 lifetimes. On a symbolic perspective, he's probably given more in this film to a single character than the sum of all his other characters in his previous films. And this is Shakespeare, no less. In the first half, he's a helpless youth whose father was labeled as a militant and made to disappear, drowned in self-pity and the sullen will to find him. In the second half, he's a man driven to the point of insanity, thirsty of blood, and brainwashed by bigger, evil forces. This performance could have been made into a caricature, but the way Shahid makes the transition from the strong-willed Haider in the first half to the almost-psycho in the second half, is just beyond words. It kind of reminded us of Robert de Niro's performance in Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver, where the protagonist is driven to insanity by his understanding of the vile, scumbag society.

If you don't believe us, watch Shahid's six-page monologue/soliloquy in the beginning of the second half in front of a huge crowd at a traffic roundabout in Srinagar, talking about the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

It will make your heart rate shoot up to the sky and give you goosebumps. And haunt you for a few days after you've finished watching it.

1. The Climax

Sorry, you just have to see it to believe it.