cineTALK IRRESISTIBLE PIECE ON PEACE

Political turmoil and separatist violence have now become synonymous with Kashmir. It wasn't always that way. Once known as heaven on earth, the paradisiacal importance of the violent valley is celebrated in muted shades of innocence and redemption in this gentle saga of love, trust and belief during times of acute strife.

This is a film that Majid Majidi could have made. The blend of blood and innocence is the hallmark of the Iranian auteur's filmmaking style.

Director Aijaz Khan has adapted Majidi's style wholesale and then given it his own striking yet unostentatious twist.

This is a Kashmir shrouded in militancy and yet salvaged by redemptive twists of fate which perhaps would stump even God.

Standing tall in this slender parable of strife and humanism is little Hamid, played with an instinctive gravity and artless wisdom by Talha Alshad Reshi.

Casting him is half the battle won. As little Hamid converses on his missing father's cell phone with 'God' (who turns out to be a troubled CRPF trooper with a Bihari accent) the plot puts forward a sturdy yet subtle argument for dialogue, albeit on an artless "poetic" level, which for all practical purposes serves no purpose in the real world of stone pelters and human bombs.

And yet in spite of the film blissfully burying its head in the clouds, there is a burning yearning for peace underlining the treacherous tranquility of the film's surface.

In fact, the director doesn't seem to be very comfortable with the bursts of violence that punctuate little Hamid's dialogues with 'God'.

The film's only unconvincing moments are those that show the characters losing their equilibrium.

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