\u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNay, and answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two opening lines of Shakespeare\u2019s most enduring tragedy, delivered by two palace guards, actually set the tone for the rest of the play. Who *is* there? Yes, we know the characters, most notably the play\u2019s central figure, Hamlet, the prince of Denmark returning home to Elsinore after the death of his father, the king. We know of his uncle, Claudius, and his mother, the Queen. We know of Polonius, the chief counsellor of Claudius, and of his children, Laertes and Ophelia. As the play unfolds, we see the scheming that takes place on all sides, we see the moral corruption of a Queen marrying her dead king\u2019s brother, we see the revenge that Hamlet\u2019s ghostly father demands he take, and we must wrestle with the issues of appearance and reality: is what we\u2019re seeing true? Or must we dig deeper and \u201cunfold\u201d people and events to discover the heart of the treachery at play?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet<\/strong> is so enduring precisely because its twin themes of moral corruption and both familial and societal dysfunction and revenge (and how revenge is a complicated matter) find themselves present and relevant across time, and across cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two film adaptations of Hamlet<\/strong> that I am most familiar with are the 1948 version (directed by Laurence Olivier, who also starred as Hamlet) and the 1996 version (directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also played the titular role).\u00a0 I saw Branagh\u2019s version at the cinema \u2013 a completely unabridged version, running more than four hours.\u00a0 For me, there are two interesting adaptations from India that truly show how universal Shakespeare\u2019s themes can be. \u00a0The first, Haider <\/strong>\u2013 directed by Vishal Bhardwaj (no stranger to adapting Shakespeare, having also adapted Macbeth<\/strong> as Maqbool,<\/strong> and Othello <\/strong>as Omkara<\/strong>), the film is set in the fraught political climate of Kashmir.\u00a0 The second, Karmayogi<\/strong>, a Malayalam language film from 2012, is a fairly faithful adaptation of Shakespeare\u2019s play, but adapted to a myth of the Yogi clan of northern Kerala.\u00a0 If anything, both these adaptations prove the point:\u00a0 Hamlet<\/strong>\u2019s themes remain relevant today because they are universal and timeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which brings us to Aneil Karia\u2019s 2026 film adaptation of the play, with a screenplay written by Michael Lesslie, and starring Riz Ahmed as Hamlet. Karia\u2019s film is contemporary and modern, set in London\u2019s wealthy South Asian community. The core of the story remains the same: Hamlet returns to his grand family home for his father\u2019s funeral, only to discover his uncle Claudius will be marrying his newly widowed mother, Gertrude (a splendid Sheeba Chaddha). Visited by the ghost of his father, Hamlet begins a quest for vengeance, that spirals into everything around him \u2013 and within him \u2013 unravelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s where the similarity ends. This Hamlet is a stripped-down adaptation, setting a number characters aside and limiting the roles of others. The cold, distant palace of Elsinore (I have been to Elsinore, as a side trip from a very hot and humid Copenhagen, and the wind off the Baltic Sea was icy, leaving me to imagine that Shakespeare made a very good choice to set such an unforgiving play in such an unforgiving climate) is transformed into a ruthless construction conglomerate. The film\u2019s pacing begins slowly, with Hamlet going through the rituals honouring his dead father, almost numb to what is happening. As an aside: I lost my own father a couple of months ago, and Ahmed\u2019s portrayal of the grief of those early days rang so true to my own experience (apart from the family scheming). I felt as if I was going through the motions, that it all seemed so unreal. For me, my father\u2019s cremation felt like a sending off; for Hamlet, the burst of flames seems to be what ignites him to get to the bottom of what is rotten in his family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s the encounter with the spirit of his dead father (Avijit Dutt) that breaks Hamlet\u2019s already fragile, grieving spirit. It\u2019s at this point that the film moves into a chaotic, breakneck pacing that never lets up until it reaches its brutal climax. The most famous soliloquy of the play, \u201cTo be, or not to be\u201d, is delivered while Hamlet is speeding down a highway on the wrong side of the road, very much seeming as in this moment he is choosing \u201cnot to be\u201d. This speed and its tight close-up on Ahmed\u2019s performance gives that moment an absolute manic energy., revealing a man at his breaking point in his existence). And, yet, it retains the original Hamlet\u2019s indecision, layering it with confusion and, yes, madness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll admit that it takes some adjusting to adapt to the very Elizabethan stage language (the film retains this from Shakespeare) against the grit of east end London construction sites lavish wedding venues (the marriage of Claudius and Gertrude, which includes the stunning play within the play representing the death of the king, reimagined as a Kathak fusion and choreographed by Akram Khan) and an almost noir thriller atmosphere. Everything hinges on Ahmed\u2019s performance. That said, Art Malik steals moments away from Ahmed with his restrained yet commanding portrayal of Claudius, as does Timothy Spall as a manipulative , scheming Polonius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, Ahmed\u2019s performance is commanding, intense, agonizing. His Hamlet is fully disillusioned by what he sees, by his family, by those close to him. The camera\u2019s tight shots on him render him vulnerable at the same time as his disillusionment spins into anger, as his inaction finally turns to action. There is an urgency in this bold, modern, visceral adaptation, that is compelling viewing. Or, to call back to Shakespeare: \u201cMadness in great ones must not unwatched go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d \u201cNay, and answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.\u201d The two opening lines of Shakespeare\u2019s most enduring tragedy, delivered by two palace guards, actually set the tone for the rest of the play. Who *is* there? Yes, we know the characters, most notably the play\u2019s central figure, Hamlet, the…<\/p>\n