Mr. Bush and Mr. Modi: the glaring similarities
I happened to see “Death of a President” recently. The movie follows the investigation of the fictional assassination of President George W. Bush in October 2007. Combining real archival footage with a credible but fictional story, the movie presents a thought-provoking political thriller.
Some interesting political stories have, in fact, been released in India in recent years: Syriana and Crash, being the recent notable ones that I can think of. However to weave a story around the death a living and serving President getting assassinated and an investigative story solving the murder, I thought required tons of conviction. Quite expectedly, the movie was mired in controversy. US theatres banned its screening. Moreover, critical acclaim notwithstanding, it drew opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike.
As for the movie itself, well it has a riveting first 30 minutes till the point the President is murdered on a trip to Chicago and a little beyond that. However, that is the point where things start to fizzle out . I guess if the documentary format had been used more sparingly from this point onwards, the movie could well have turned to be an edge of the seat thriller. Instead the impetus of the filmmaker appears more on making a political statement. And what could have become a great movie, is restricted to being good in some parts and pretty average in others.
The movie though set me thinking. What if a similar concept is made in India? Will it ever be allowed to see the light of the day? And who could replace Mr. Bush?
Well, most certainly it can’t be our PM. The closest personality that I could think for this is Mr. Modi. And the reason is simple: both evoke the same hatred and yet enjoy their loyal pockets that keep them virtually unshakeable. Moreover the politics of both these gentlemen is modeled on the same lines: it is based on two incidents that occurred around the same time( the 9/11/2000 WTC bombing and the 27/2/2002 Godhra carnage). Both these incidents provided them sufficient fuel for fire which they could stoke at convenience for the rest of their political existence.
The present Gujrat elections have generated huge chaos and unending mudslinging. Nobody but Mr. Modi knows just how critical these elections are for him. And the desperation has manifested itself in various obvious forms.
However, what if there is a twist in the tale and he gets murdered during the campaign trail. And what if there are three possible suspects that the police zeroes upon. One, a young girl, whose family members were murdered in the post Godhra riots. Two, a militant trained in Pakistan. And three, a person whose brother was falsely implicated on murder charges, just to shield the real culprit….
Are we ready for such maverick experimentation? Moreover would the audience want to watch something like this?
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Sure Dude i wud want to watch such stuff y not: Donno if the censors will allow that
Only a few souls would want to see it, the others will go berserk in indigity even at the mooting of such an idea. Whatever high and mighty opinion we Indians may have about ourselves we are not that mature a country to digest such stuff.
one should make such kind of movie and release on youtube … (: ..but who has so much money and conviction …
i know this is not the place for political debate .. but just for ur info, atleast there havent been any more terrorist attacks on either bush’s or modi’s soil
Tuhin, why don’t you write a script for that, perhaps you can find a decent filmmaker.. and Narendra Modi doesn’t deserve such a respect as MR…he should be c…….
suchita…..
who the hell r u on this earth to tell who desrves wat…mind ur own f****g business….This is not a political forum and least for exposing ur impotency i.e pseudo-secularism.
Moving on, such a experimental movies would sure garner lot of controversy but nevertheless make for good viewing…
@ Tuhin –
when there is uproar over the lyrics of a bollywood movie, when valentine’s day repeatedly gets banned by goons in the name of samskriti and parampara, when you’ll find more balls in a nunnery than the Censor Board…
But, dreams have often changed the world.
@dabba..knowledge and not dreams change the world which u clearly seem to lack when u say in name of sanskriti and parampara….had u cared to get to the bottomline of issue and not mreely relied on ”make- people-chutiya ” reporting…u wud have certainly changed some order…but alas..u too proved to be a copy-paste-chutiyaapa kind of guy…
@ prashant –
Oh boy, here we go again. I am aware what the bottomline of the issue is. These are the same sorry tropes they use…the “they” being the people that blame the celebration of Valentine’s Day (the goons that break into other peoples’ property, vandalize it, etc etc) on the destruction of Indian culture. I will be glad to see Valentine’s Day destroyed, but I own shares in the Hallmark Company, so I have a vested interest.
Don’t get me wrong, I am wiring money to Modi’s election fund as we speak, and have taken out full page ads for him, so hopefully he will come to power. I don’t have the knowledge of this future event, but clearly I can dream right?
@ prashant –
oops sorry again, that last para was from my Filmmakers-For-Modi blog, that I accidentally cut and paste. Please excuse the chutiyaapa.
@dabba…
if u dont like Modi…so be it…but dont try to delude urself with any sense of foolish pride, especially when u r clearly a 100 people saying-must be true thing…
I could excuse u for all ur chutiyapa…if u dont pour it right here..
If this was a real movie, might Modi point to it as proof of his being persecuted?
The most interesting part is the synchronicity of the two men’s story arcs.
prashant iam minding my own business until you came along and started telling what i have right to do and what not to .. i will say and feel whatever i want , modi is a rabid dog and deserves the worst
there you go ..now buzz off and mind your own f**ing business :d/
Wish Narendra Modi acted in movies..atleast he would be remotely connected to cinema..there would be some point duscussing him..:P
Okay, I know I am inviting trouble by saying this but as a staunch BJP supporter, Modi is just one more politician who is doing his job and atleast, they did not push our country into ruin like Congress did.
Right from the time rejecting an offer to join the UN security council to taking Kashmir issue to the UN and many other global fiascoes, the congress has always made our country suffer. Did everyone forget the killings of Sikhs in Delhi? What happened to the enquiry? What right does Sonia has to comment on Gujrat killings when their own party unashamedly went on a killing spree?
Okay…Everyone is a bastard in politics but coming to Hindu Muslim divide…Today the situation is we and them! Most of the muslims don’t see themselves as Indians inspite of all what India did for them! India is the only effing country to provide a Haj subsidy! But what do they do in return? Bomb our buses, trains, buildings and kill thousands of innocents. Before it was Pak sponsored terrorism, now our very own Indian muslims are involved in everything!
Do you people even know after Babri Masjid was demolished, it was the Muslims who effing started the riots and if Shiv Sena hadn’t stepped in, many more thousands of Hindus would have been dead. In our effort to be pseudo secularists, we are forgetting the clear and present danger. But what’s the use, for thousands of centuries, Indians, in their effing effort to please all religions, nationalities fight amongst themselves trying to be morally upright and in the end, give ourselves away to Mughal Raiders and Britishers.
Muslims in India need to understand that until they “feel” alienated, they will remain alienated. No one in India really hates them or questions their right to be the citizens of this country but because of their loyalty more to the global ummah than the country, they are facing resentment today from everyone.
A very depressing post that is completely against the spirit of this site. Please keep your political ideologies to yourself. I think we can do by just limiting discussions to cinema here.
DK, I disagree that this is against the spirit of this site. The proposition of this article is using film to comprehend the Gujarat situation from many angles.
“Depressing” issues like this should not be buried and forgotten without being understood, because that’s how they tend to keep popping up.
Instead of adding to the discussion, some people quickly devolve to hurtful rhetoric that begs for in-kind response. It’s predictable but not worthy of anyone’s time.
How about commenting on the author’s original questions?
suchita…on what ground u try to position urself different than Modi if u also want him to burn in hell, only if u had the opportunity….
Just dont try to show-off ur secular or watever credentials at the drop of a hat….this is wat I meant…I dont say (rather cannot) tht u dont express ur opinion…
Evelyn Tu, really appreciate your objectivity
@Evelyn
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Agree that depressing issues should not be swept under the carpet. But I think there is a proper place and forum for taking up issues. In my opinion raising an issue in the wrong forum removes all the objectivity in the subsequent discussions.
You are free to disagree with me
Coming back to the movie I think it was a Bad Movie. The movie gets completely offtrack because of the political ideology inserted by the makers. In India where cinema is still not free from the clutches of government and various social groups, attempting something close to such a movie will be sureshot disaster.
congress is @$%#@^$% . modi for PM !
This is in response to Macchhars comment…
Macchhar yaar.. u have an amazing sense of humour.. but hey.. not in this comment…
What u say is 100 % right.. but “they” here is not Muslims… but fundamentals of a religion.. the same as those who have bolied down Hinduism to Ram and No Valentine’s day stuff…
Congress n BJP and all political parties are to be blamed.. including us for allowing this situation… look around or back to your days from your child hood.. I bet u must have come accross many Muslims people who have shown u courtesy, love, friendship… if not atleast hve been simple, human beings.. just like all of us… cant blame the whole Muslim communtiy for the sake of what some of them do… its like saying all humans are bastards and should be killed.. as ultimately hindus, muslims n christians are all human beings… :d
Machachar you say no one in India hates Muslims while you go on and on, on a blaming spree in the first 4 paras.
How can anyone ‘feel’ at home when constantly looked at as on outsider?
Have you lived as a ‘minority’ anywhere?
It changes our very pysche and behaviour.
I wholeheartedly agree that for Muslims the Ummah is superior to the country they live in, but that is the way the religion IS. Not because they want to hate Hindus or India.
And I also agree that we/politicians- are extremely shallow when we blame only the majority community for all the ills, and there you are 100% right about playing the Muslim Card for votes.
[ Congress etc ]
But if what you say about Mongols/Mughals/Britishers
holds true then no one but the ‘Scheduled Tribes’
will be the rightful owners of India, then where will we all go? Back to Central Asia??
All through History wars have been fought for land and dominance, it is a sad fact but true that a 1000 and more Royal Principalities who were neck deep practising Kamasutra and at loggerheads with one another could not stave off a ‘foreigner’…
So be it.
Modi for PM! :O :O