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Yahaan

Yahaan : Movie Review
29th July 2005 21.39 IST
By Nitika Desai

Love stories set in Kashmir valley are rare to see in Bollywood. Shoojit Sircar, the famous ad filmmaker, has without doubt chosen an interesting subject for his debut feature film Yahaan .

The movie, set in the beautiful Kashmir valley, has Jimmy Shergill playing an idealistic army captain and newcomer Minissha Lamba a Kashmiri Muslim girl.

Aman (Jimmy) is an idealistic army captain posted in Kashmir. During one of his patrols in the backwaters of one of Kashmir’s lakes, he comes across Adaa (Minissha), a beautiful local girl.

Emotions are stirred at the very first sight only, but not a word spoken. Destiny brings them together again and in no time love sprouts and blossoms. But this is the love that no one in the valley would accept. By an unwritten diktat, the girls in the valley are debarred from have any relationship with ‘outsiders’, particularly if they happen to be army guys.

But Adaa and Aman defy this diktat and face disapproval from Adaa’s family and from local community, apart from threats from militants.

What follows tests their love. It tests Aman’s idealism and Adaa’s belief in the good. There is an attack on the family, a court martial, a militant deep-rooted in his fundamentalist ideas, a peace-loving freedom fighter, a near-death experience, a hostage situation and the nation challenged.

Director Shoojit Sircar treads the middle path in telling his story – neither he toes the commercial line, nor does he make his movie look like an art flick, something with a strong element of realism.

Yahaan lies somewhere in between. The hand-held camera and its ensuing effect on the large screen lends the movie a documentary touch – something like a journalistic account – while the songs and colorful dresses, provide the dreamy, fictitious element.

Newcomer Minissha Lamba has delivered a good enough performance, although there are some sequences where her discomfort shows. Jimmy Shergill is the revelation of this movie. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the actor has delivered the best performance of his career till date.

It would be an overstatement to say that Yahaan is an exceptional movie. The film does have its flaws. The story moves at uneven paces and the music and songs, although appropriate to the situations, are plain and leave little impact. Still, it is worth one’s while to watch this movie once.

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Yahaan
Jimmy Shergill
Minissha Lamba
Shoojit Sircar