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Release date:
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February 19, 2016
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Director:
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Ram Madhvani
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Cast:
Language:
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Sonam Kapoor,
Shabana Azmi, Yogendra Tiku, Shekhar Ravjiani
Hindi
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In a week when defenders
of violence and divisiveness are laying claim to a monopoly on patriotism,
comes this unintentionally well-timed chronicle of service to country and humanity.
Neerja Bhanot did not fly a 207-feet-high Tiranga over her home or beat up
journalists at Patiala House while shouting “Vande mataram”, yet in this film’s closing moments, as her family
announces an award in her name and her photograph smiles at us from a podium
next to an image of the Indian tricolor, we are gently reminded that there is
no greater way to make India proud than to do your duty quietly, determinedly
and in spite of your fears, as she did.
This is a story
worth telling.
Neerja is a biopic of the airline purser who lost her
life saving passengers on the US-bound Pan Am Flight 73 hijacked by Palestinian
terrorists in Karachi in September 1986. If you were around in that decade, you
would remember her, a young woman who is now part of contemporary India’s
folklore of courage. Neerja is said to have alerted the cockpit as soon as gun-wielding
men boarded at Karachi airport, thus ensuring that the pilot and co-pilot
deplaned immediately and nixed the intruders’ original plan to get the aircraft
flown to another country.
As a result of her
continued presence of mind under highly stressful circumstances, she subsequently
managed to save most of the people in her charge and died shielding children
from bullets. Her 23rd birthday was just two days away. Neerja was
posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra, India’s highest civilian honour for peacetime
bravery, Pakistan’s Tamgha-e-Insaaniyat and several awards in the United States,
headquarters of the now-defunct Pan Am.
Her sacrifice could
move an iceberg to tears. We already know that. The question here is how it is
served by this telling.
This is the kind of
project that a conventional Bollywood (or for that matter Hollywood) filmmaker
would have been tempted to over-dramatise with voluble dialogues and music,
while giving short shrift to facts in a bid to needlessly lionise the central
character. The Ben Affleck-starrer Argo diminished
many heroes to over-state the US’ role in a real-life escape of potential
American hostages from Iran. The recent Akshay Kumar-starrer Airlift went several steps further on
this front, completely twisting the truth about a real-life evacuation of
Indians from Kuwait, no doubt to create a fictional character deemed worthy of
Akshay Kumar’s star stature.
Director Ram
Madhvani and writer Saiwyn Quadras will have none of that. Ram is an
advertising professional who debuted in Bollywood with the decidedly offbeat
feature Let’s Talk in 2002. Saiwyn
earlier wrote Mary Kom. Together for Neerja, they have stayed faithful to most
available accounts of the happenings on that flight. Although an opening
disclaimer insists that the film is based on true events but is not a
biography, even for those of us who may not have read reams of news reports, it
is hard to find a moment in Neerja that
is evidently exaggerated for cinematic effect (barring one brief background song
in the middle of the hijack, that could have been done away with).
Sonam Kapoor stars
as the ill-fated airline professional-cum-model who gave her life that others
might live. The film begins by intercutting between the terrorists’ preparations
for their mission in Karachi while Neerja livens up a party in a Mumbai housing
society. Without much ado, it is quickly established in those early scenes that
she is a live wire, that her family – Dad (Yogendra Tiku), Mum (Shabana Azmi) and
two brothers – dotes on her, that she is hard-working and sincere, and that she
is a mega Rajesh Khanna fan given to finding an appropriate quote from Kakaji’s
films for any given situation.
Though her cheery
demeanour gives nothing away, she is still recovering from a personal trauma
when we first meet her. Her friends and boyfriend (Shekhar Ravjiani) are
encouraging her to give marriage a second shot, but she is hesitant. She is not
Superwoman. She is Everywoman.
Perhaps that is the
big takeaway from this film: that valour is often about ordinary people doing
extraordinary things. From the moment the terrorists board that flight, we see
Neerja’s tears and fears; we also see her squaring her shoulders, staying calm
and not allowing those fears to conquer her.
The USP of Neerja is its realism and low-key tone.
Everything unfolding on screen feels like something that must surely have
happened off screen. It is the seeming lack of effort to build up melodrama
that makes this such an intense, suspenseful and emotionally consuming viewing
experience.
Each element, from
the narrative structure to the recreation of a 1980s aeroplane, the costumes,
styling and Vishal Khurana’s excellent background score are directed towards
giving the film its authentic feel. The director makes a wise choice to stay
indoors most of the time even when we are not on the plane; the outdoors are
primarily visited in the night-time in the film. This justifies cinematographer
Mitesh Mirchandani’s low-lit frames which are key to building up the sense of claustrophobia
and foreboding that envelopes us as Neerja
progresses. Editor Monisha R. Baldawa contributes to the film’s sense of urgency,
not allowing the pace to flag even during those flashbacks to Neerja’s home in
Mumbai and her unhappy marital experience in Doha.
Sonam gives us a
highly pared-down version of her usual glamorous self for this role and in the
bargain delivers one of her best performances till date. This is not an easy part
but she internalises Neerja’s character well. Shabana as her mother reduced me
to a blubbering, sobbing mess, especially in the climactic scene.
These women have
the benefit of playing Neerja’s
primary characters. The writer’s and casting director’s skill lies in the fact
that in addition to them, at least a dozen supporting players in the film
remain memorable even if many go nameless: like the brother who has absolute
clarity that his sister should not return to an abusive husband, or that
well-intentioned Pakistani airport official handling negotiations on the ground
in Karachi, or the co-pilot who is tempted to break hijack protocol and stay on
in the plane.
What elevates Neerja to a level of brilliance though is
its treatment of the hijackers and their group dynamic. It is easy to
caricature villains. Making them relatable and believable in spite of their
evil intentions is an effort few film writers make. Saiwyn does. Hats off to him
for that.
The figures flashed
on screen in the end remind us that there were 379 people (passengers and crew)
on board Pan Am Flight 73 when it was hijacked, and that 359 survived. News
reports from back then tell us that Neerja was the prime mover in saving those
lives. If she had been from any other country, chances are this film would have
been made decades back. Indian cinema tends to steer clear of recent events,
possibly because we do not invest enough money in writers to ensure that their
research passes muster with the survivors of the tales they’re recounting.
It is a good thing
this team chose to buck the trend, because Neerja Bhanot’s is a story worth
telling and this film tells it really well. It is as if Ram Madhvani was there
on that flight with Saiwyn, Sonam and the rest of them that day in 1986. It is
as if Neerja’s soul resides in the film and whispers at us from the screen in
those final moments. It is as if we too were there. For a filmmaker to stir up
such a high degree of emotion while making no obvious attempt to manipulate us
is an amazing achievement. Neerja is
outstanding.
Rating
(out of five stars): ****
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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122 minutes
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