Hamid film review: Rasika Dugal is bright in this heartbreaking and uplifting film

Distribution : Rasika Dugal, Talha Arshad Reshi, Vikas Kumar

Director : Aijaz Khan

Rating : 4 stars (out of 5)

The innocence of childhood and the healing power of faith – one stems from and in the world. other – are put to the test in the context of Kashmir conflict in Hamid mute and moving narrative of the loss and nostalgia of a country beset by violence. The director's third release, Aijaz Khan, describes the endless turmoil in the valley through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy, Hamid, who, in all his innocence, believes in miracles and resurrections.

Talha Arshad Reshi, a man of great breadth – The young actor in the eyes that the director has developed a few days before filming bathes the film with a warm glow that serves to dissipate frequently the dark and depressing reality of the story. Hamid belongs equally to the luminous Rasika Dugal, who pierces our souls with unfailing and controlled intensity.

In a scene, the boy's father, shipbuilder and poet Rehmat, tells little Hamid that death is followed by a burial. Why then, the boy asks. For the deceased to be forgotten, Rehmat answers. But is oblivion even an option when people disappear without permission? Hamid asks his clbadmate Bilaal when the latter, citing his grandmother, says that those whom Allah loves the most leave the world early.

In another scene, which shows a much more temporal and complex problem, two paramilitaries. pee on a wall on which is written the word & # 39; Azaadi & # 39 ;. A boy barely out of adolescence peels a stone at one of them. The livid soldier pushes the young attacker to the ground and points his gun at him. His colleague prevents him from pulling the trigger. Death is always a bullet or an explosion in this rugged landscape.

Hamid is punctuated by many disturbing sequences that expose the situation on the ground in Kashmir, but when the cherubic is rooted. on the screen, looking at the world in its own way, everything appears, feels and sounds infinitely better. As the film unfolds, the boy becomes an emblem of the kind of unblemished purity that can generate and maintain hope despite fear and death.

Hamid is dotted with images already seen in fictional films about Kashmir – soldiers on patrol, stone hunters, azaadi scholars and separatists work in the shadows to indoctrinate Dead-end children who have nowhere to go. But do not expect drama dramas, acute rhetoric or visceral action from this sober and refined film that searches for light sources in thick darkness.

Hamid is a story as messy as it is simple, of fable, describing the repercussions of protracted and insoluble political turmoil for both fighters and ordinary people caught between two fires. True, the movie hardly dives into the quivering cauldron that is Kashmir, but it's all it needs to convey the poignant character of the story.

The tonal equity that the director adopts is perfect sync with the unobtrusive tale of a boy who asks for the film. God's intervention when his father disappears. Hamid is a deeply melancholic film that is both nostalgic and warm, heartbreaking and inspiring. a fervent advocacy for mental health in a situation where humanity is the biggest victim.

Adapted by Ravinder Randhawa from Phone No 786, a play by Kashmiri writer Mohammad Amin Bhat, the film explores the magic residues and regeneration possibilities that exist. under the thick layers of rancor and mistrust that enveloped The Valley.

One of the main narrative elements of Hamid is "embodied" by the absent boat builder, which we only see in a handful of early scenes. He disappears, leaving behind his tools, a cell phone and a frayed newspaper of thoughtful poems about the pain of living in the shadow of the gun. His puzzled son has no idea where his father left and some pines meet with him. The boy clings to hope when his entourage is plunged into despair.

Hamid (Reshi) composed the 786, which, it is said, is the number of God. The boy believes that his father was summoned by the Almighty to build a boat and that he will be back once the job is done. His mother, Ishrat (Dugal), completely numb by the unexplained disappearance of her husband, not only has no reason to share her optimism, but she has also developed a certain coldness toward her only son.

Hamid's phone call reaches a CRPF man, Abhay (Vikas Kumar), a man in the head a hot girl who has not been home for more than a year and a half and is thirsty to hold her eight-month-old daughter in her arms. a joke, the soldier plays the game, claiming to be the benevolent voice of Allah, thus reinforcing the boy's faith in his destiny.

The first time Hamid has a long conversation with the soldier, the latter catches a cold. Hamid asks: Do not you have warm clothes? No, replies Abhay jokingly. "Hand kuch karta hoon (I'm going to do something," said the boy and hangs up.) He takes an old shawl from his father and leaves it at the local mosque.He ends up holding a beggar.Hamid is naturally puzzled, but he is too anxious to make sure his father gets too worried about these little setbacks.

Dugal tells absolutely the role Kashmiri half-widow who has lost everything, but wants to live, Vikas Kumar is magnificent as an anguished soldier whose life is forever altered by Hamid's childish supplication.The young Reshi is the young Reshi. of natural charm.

It is in Hamid's unwavering belief that Allah will fulfill his wish, no matter what gives the film its quality of well-being, even when its consideration of everything what's wrong with the Valley is accurate and clinical. have been lost in endless war, but it could still be found. Hamid the film and the character, articulates this global hope with sweet and precise persuasive traits.