Zara Webb’s striking eyes hold us in her grasp throughout. She plays Noor who has come to Kashmir accompanied by her mother and stepfather to look for her missing dad. Here she befriends Majid. They are of the same age and battling the same indefinable hollowness . Both struggling to fill the vacuum in their lives as they wonder where their fathers are. While most people seem to have resigned to their fate, Noor demands closure.
Kashmir is a complex issue. The military clampdown, resentment among the locals, the constant foreboding tone in heartbreaking beautiful surroundings.
Director Ashwin Kumar’s keen eye for verisimilitude as he refuses to provide easy answers or solutions make No Fathers in Kashmir a poignant and moving tale about conflict and its impact on impressionable minds.
It is the kids’ shared need for closure that somehow helps them make sense of the confusion around them. When Noor tells Majid she wants a picture with a terrorist he doesn’t waste a min in pretending to be one. He covers his face with a cloth and poses with a gun that one of the security officials left unattended for a brief time. It’s a funny scene but the innocence of it all makes it heartbreakingly painful. Both Zara Webb and young Shivam Raina are devastatingly sincere in their respective roles.
Ashwin Kumar never dials up the hysteria. His is a steady but piercing gaze into the impact the conflict has, not just on people trying to grapple with a life that will never quite be the same for them again, but also the security officers burdened with the responsibility to keep things “under control” – as the Army Major (Anshuman Jha) says about his dilemma “where every villager is an enemy and a countryman!”
No Fathers in Kashmir has many scenes with photographs. It almost seems like a rebellious act of an individual’s personal memory and identity in the face of a state clampdown.
Noor clicks lots of picture like any other teenager her age. When she goes looking for her father’s album she finds all the photographs are gone. Later while trying to negotiate the release of a dear one, she trades her phone for his safe return home. At a time when various entities are trying to control the narrative in the valley, these memories in the form of pictures almost become like a silent act of resolute protest.
Although no attempt is made to tone down the grizzly reality of violence, No Fathers in Kashmir has a thoughtful empathetic view on the issue. Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Soni Razdan, Natasha Maga, Maya Sarao (particularly fantastic), Anshuman Jha along with Ashwin Kumar (who himself is brilliant in the role of a separatist) and the terrific performance from the kids give us many moments that stay with us long after the film is over. Jean-Marc Selva’s camera captures the rising anxiety as the actors mime the weariness and pain of living in a conflict zone.
No fathers in Kashmir is an important film that makes an honest and sincere attempt at trying to understand the human cost of violence.
4 Quints out of 5!
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