Few hours ago National Geographic (NG) broadcasted a
drama-documentary titled ‘Seal Team Six – The raid on Osama Bin Laden’. Before
its broadcast the documentary attracted controversy as it was perceived that
the timing of the broadcast (which the Republicans thought would be pro Obama) may
influence the outcomes of the US presidential polls (which happens in less than
48 hours). Many news sources wrongly put that the NG documentary is the first
on Osama’s death, the first would probably be 'Bin Laden: Shoot to kill' broadcasted
on 7 Sep 2011 by Channel 4.
However this spiel is about something different - NG is
known for its rigorous authenticity and is the watchword for trustworthiness
and accuracy (I have been a long fan and subscriber of MGM and utterly in love with the map
supplements). And that’s why I was a bit let down by some sloppy mistakes in
filming on location. The documentary opens with covert HUMINT surveillance on
Al-Kuwaiti (courier of Osama) in 2010 Peshawar. But lo and behold the shop
signboards are in Hindi, the roads are full of Bajaj autos and cars with Maharashtra
number plates (everyone drives with them from Al-Kuwaiti to the policemen, I
suppose if Bin-Laden had driven a car then the documentary would have shown him
driving a MH number-plated car), skyscraper in Peshawar and people too speak in
Hindi (not Urdu or Pashto).
I can go on with the inaccuracies - women mostly wearing
sarees, proliferation of ‘Indian make’ cars like sumo, omini, wagonr etc. (which
are not available in Pakistan), Mumbai Police vans, people using Indian currency
notes. It started reminding me of the infamous photoshoping of the pyramids (Re:
NGM cover of Feb 1982).
The dashboard camera on the vehicle following Al-Kuwaiti shows
coordinates: 17°23'36.68''N 78°29'20.95''E, one would guess that it would be
near Peshawar/Abbottabad somewhere on the Karakoram Highway where the chase is
purportedly being on, however surprise surprise the coordinates are of a petrol
pump in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India wrong road, wrong state and wrong country.
According to the newspaper reports the Pakistan portion have
been shot in Khopoli, Maharashtra (but some of the scenes especially that with
the omini cabs, police van and the skyscraper is of Mumbai). To see what Peshawar look like
have a look at the clip ‘Bin Laden’s cash flow’ which shows the background and
extra feature to the main documentary or some YouTube video.
Well, one hopes that Kathryn Bigelow’s (of the Hurt Locker
fame) Zero Dark Thirty a feature length movie due to be released in a month and
a half time would be more authentic. The Pakistani portion was recreated in
Chandigarh and Patiala, news report suggested that there were some overzealous
idiots who protested that Pakistan locations being portrayed on Indian land with
change in shop board language, flags and attire of extras and actors.
In spite of such mistakes Seal Team Six is a commendable
documentary which tries to look into the nitty gritty of the operation - actual
and intelligence. It is one of the few documentaries which shows the help
provided by the Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi in genetically tagging Bin Laden’s
presence and the intelligence gathering teams on ground. A Raymond Allen Davis moment
for one of the local agents (I guess its fictional like perhaps the infights between
seal team members, but notches up the drama quotient). I must still say that
there are scenes which show that the directors may not have altogether forgotten
the small things – when one of the agents drink from a coal can it is in inscribed
in Urdu, the policemen are wearing Pakistani uniforms (or at least they don’t look
Indian).
Overall the drama-documentary
is quite good and one of the best ones in the market, but perhaps the drama part
could have been suppressed a bit and paid a lot more attention to details
(little things that matter much).
