Oh dear – Mumbai/Khopoli as Peshawar/Abbottabad? What have you done NG?

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).