Insight:
Haraamkhor revolves around the life of four people. Sandhya, a ninth class student, is being raised alone by his father who is having an affair of his own. She eventually, falls for the married teacher, Shyam. Shyam is a married teacher who calls himself a respected person of the village while having a taboo affair. Mintu and Kamal are students under Shyam. Kamal is hopelessly in love with Sandhya and Mintu helps him along the way. Kamal and Mintu find out about the illicit love-affair of Sandhya and Shyam. They think of ways to take revenge upon their teacher. What follows is a tale of twisted taboo relationship between these characters.
Buzz:
The Censor Board had some serious reservations regarding the movie, showcasing a bold relationship between a teacher and his underage student, and hence was banned. It was later cleared after many cuts. The entire movie was shot, just in 16 days.
Haraamkhor was premiered at 15th annual New York Indian Film Festival 2016 where Nawazuddin Siddiqui received the Best Actor Award for the film. At the Los Angeles Indian Film Festival last year, Shweta Tripathi won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Actress. The movie was also a favourite at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2016.
What To Anticipate:
The very beginning of it all is the simple and profound acting that will leave you mesmerized. Shweta Tripathi effortlessly plays the role of a 14-year old student. Nawazuddin is brilliant, playing the role of Shyam, a sleazy teacher, immoral, cunning, unscrupulous and an opportunist.
Shyam is a manipulative person who uses both Sandhya and his wife. On the other hand, Sandhya needs some emotional closure in her life of abandonment and she finds that in her sexual involvement with Shyam, so much so that she overlooks everything else. She pulls off the role of an innocent, rebellious teenager very well.
The two boys, Kamal and Mintu have their adventures of their own in the movie, with Mintu supporting his friend with bizarre ideas, like if a boy and a girl see each other naked, they are bound to get married. There is childhood like innocence and it looks authentic. It’s impressive to see the writer giving them dialogues suitable to their thinking.
The movie talks of the taboo love between that of a teacher and a student and throws some light on the aspects of the vulnerability of a child, who easily believes everything, in search of love. The two illicit affairs in the movie, Sandhya-Shyam and that of Raghuvir-Neelu run parallel to each other, one taking cue from the other.
With all the good things being said, the movie does have some shifts and jumps, which remain unaccounted for. If to guess, the writer may have thought of it as providing space to think, but at places it goes a little over the top. The narrative is slow and missing in between, but the same can be said to be covered well by the acting.
Trailer: