Movie Review: Haraamkhor

Movie Review: ‘Haraamkhor’
Rating: 4/5
Director: Shlok Sharma
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Shweta Tripthai

Haraamkhor, directed by Shlok Sharma, and starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Shweta Tripthai is a stellar piece of filmmaking.  Debutant director Shlok Sharma’s Haraamkhor, a film that was shot in just 16 days isnt restrained by its low budget or fancy locations, in fact Sharma and his entire team used the surrounding of a small Gujarat village to underline emotions between the films main characters.  Haraamkhor eschews Bollywood-isms and the greed to appeal to any imagined ‘masses’. Haraamkhor’s filmmaking is brave, ballsy and confident.

‘Haraamkhor’, at its core, really looks at this strange but very common mismatch. It is about the relationship between an oldish, married teacher (Nawzuddin Siddiqui), and his teenaged pupil. The pupils of your eye will possibly dilate at seeing anything normal in such a relationship. The filmmakers aren’t suggesting otherwise either. Look at the title. It’s Haraamkhor. It refers to the teacher Shyam in the film, of course. I know a lot of people who had issues with the name. But what does haraamkhor really mean, besides that it sounds similar to an illegitimate child in Hindi/Urdu?

As per Urban Dictionary, HK, or ‘haramkhor’, is some someone who gets kicks out of doing something he’s not supposed to. In that sense, this film isn’t an incessantly dark one on exploitation, and a minor’s sex abuse, as it were. Or even something salacious, or simplistic enough to look at how this odd sort of bond, which is essentially a taboo, pans out, at home, in class, or elsewhere.

The Censor Board objected to the ‘bold’ content of Haraamkhor because they thought the Indian audience was not ready for such experimental cinema. This forced the makers to make a legal appeal before the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, which delivered the verdict in the movie’s favor.

This could be Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s creepiest role of his career. Any character who manipulates an underage girl to have sex with him is not someone who can appeal to us. It is the supreme talent and calibre of this fine actor that he can make us laugh as well as feel disgusted about his actions. He has no qualms about abusing his wife or beating his students, especially the girls badly, and that makes him one of the worst protagonists to have ever graced Indian cinema. And yet you cannot miss the inherent humor in his performance, especially in the scene where he desperately trying to convince his wife to stay, after she finds out about his affair. However, the film belongs to Shweta Tripathi. In what was supposed to be her debut movie, Tripathi proves once again, after Masaan, that she is a talent to watch out for. She brings in the right amount of anguish, despair, rebelliousness and playfulness that her flawed character needs. Shlok Sharma has taken a gritty subject, that will resonate well with the audience who read papers and are appalled by the atrocities committed to the kids by people who were supposed to take care of them. The interval scene is one of the most uncomfortable scenes I have witnessed in a film in recent times. Another pat on the back is reserved for Mukesh Chhabra, the casting genius for roping in some natural talent to fill in the supporting roles. Be it Trishala Adhikari who plays Shyam’s suspicious wife or the kids who play Kamal, Mintoo or Shaktimaan-aping tot, all have been brilliantly cast.

The most moving moment in the film comes in the final scene where two people, united in their grief and having undergone a strange feeling of catharsis, come to terms with their situation. The entire film leads up to this point.   When the ending comes, it is more than effective, giving you a better sense of the two characters and their pain than the film has managed to until that point. Sharma chooses a subject that has fascinated filmmakers for years

Although the film is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea on account of its gritty subject, here is a lot to love and lot to notice in Haraamkhor. The film is like a diamond; the more you notice, the more you find imperfections which make it all the more beautiful, all the more perfect.