Mirzya teaser: Harshvardhan Kapoor makes his debut as a mysterious warrior

Rakeysh Mehra has had an intriguing and enigmatic journey in Bollywood, from the supernatural thriller Aks to a radical view of India’s freedom movement, with Rang De Basanti, to a nostalgic journey down Chandni Chowk in Delhi 6, and finally his bio-pic Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Mehra’s next, Mirzya, whose first teaser was out on Wednesday, will introduce Anil Kapoor’s son Harshvardhan Kapoor, along with with Saiyami Kher. We get only a glimpse of the two in the first trailer. [caption id=“attachment_2549570” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A still of Mirzya. Image from Youtube.[/caption] However the principal character in the teaser is an arrow. A sparkling rock-solid diamond-tipped arrow that a man (presumably the film’s debutant leading man Harshvardhan Kapoor) shoots towards the sky as the plaintive voice of Pakistani sufi singer Saieen Zahoor cuts across the soundtrack like a sharp knife piercing the heart. As the Sufi singer’s heartbreaking lament rises to crescendo, another voice, of Daler Mehendi takes over to sing out the film’s title song. This is composer Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s most challenging soundtrack, as the whole film is done in verse, poetry and song. As for the teaser’s visual design, it is a tragic image encompassing the complex dynamics of the central love story and its primary conflict: why did Sahibaan pierce and kill her beloved Mirza with an arrow? Mehra says he has been obsessed with the question from the time he read the legendary love saga in college. Many years later, he took the question to Gulzar sa’ab, who answered with his inimitable sarcasm, “That only Sahibaan can answer” “When I embarked on this journey I wasn’t the least concerned about how many times the story had been done. This was just something I needed to do. Usually classic love stories are based on the premise of societal opposition. In Mirza Sahibaan, the dynamics and complexities of the relationship are defined by the couple itself. That’s what made this love story so contemporary for me. There is unconditional surrender in this relationship, a kind of Sufiyana touch, that fascinated me,” explains Mehra. In the brief teaser, Mirzya promises to be an unprecedented achievement, the kind of love experience we’ve never seen before. Much in the same way that Rakeysh Mehra’s Rang De Basanti turned out be. Watch the trailer here: