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Shikara
Critic reviews and ratings
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...there could not have been a better timing for a story that tells us what happens when religion becomes the sole criterion to determine who belongs where.
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...considering it’s a historical drama, it is rather disappointing to witness that the film does not go beyond a few fleeting mentions of the ordeal of the people from the other side of the incident; a pigeonholed approach.
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...is a film on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits made with the right amount of sensibility and compassion. While it touches hearts in many parts, it also compels you to question if everything was clearly black and white with no shades of grey.
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Though a mass exodus is shown, the hurdles this huge group of people must have faced are all but glanced over. It’s as if the director doesn’t want to go there. This reluctance steals the film of some of its gravitas.
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...is a beautifully shot and poignant love story with fine performances that could have been a compelling masterpiece but it unfortunately gives in to the conventional love story.
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...the screenplay by Chopra, Abhijat Joshi, and Kashmiri Pandit investigative journalist Rahul Pandita has been structured well but as mentioned above, could have achieved greatness with a more holistic perspective.
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...film's measured writing, which sparkles in its equanimity.
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...touches your heart while making you smile and cry at the same time. Chopra does justice to his direction though a much hard-hitting narrative is what one continues to wait for.
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...is tentative in its politics, earnest in its design, and ultimately moving in its human scope.
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...is a surprisingly good watch.
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The epistolary device is one of the clumsy ways in which the movie deals with a knotty issue. Chopra, who has written the screenplay with Rahul Pandita and Abhijat Joshi, picks a narrow-angle lens through which to view the Kashmiri struggle.
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Scraping an uncomfortable past may reinforce the negative feelings that may have healed with time. And while the purpose of a film is essentially to entertain, this one could potentially influence and shape one’s opinion about the fate of those in the Valley.
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A more nuanced sense of history would have made this film much more complete, even if you were to put aside the enormous irony of watching a film about a place which has been in lock-down for the past six months: when will the people in the valley be able to watch Shikara, and tell us what they think?
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An ineffective summary of the tragedies that people might have suffered in real life. And yet makes you wonder, if this is a summary, how horrifying might the details have been.
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...is evasive on many crucial counts, but, judged on purely cinematic parameters, its strengths are noteworthy.
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Given his personal connection with the story, Chopra captures emotion and upheaval, loss and fear, hope and hopelessness. However, as a chapter in Indian history, the film required a great deal more context and deference to the complexity of politics in the Valley.
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Containing the narrative to a ‘human and personal’ experience, the filmmaker buries politics under the garb of ‘love and hope’
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The problem with Shikara is not that it wants to tell the story of a people forced out of their homes. But that it paints the common Kashmiri Muslim as a colluder, an active one at that.
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