So, I saw Airlift on Friday, and it was really shockingly good.  Like, logical plot, great period details, sophisticated filming, all sorts of cool things.  And they all combined to do a great job of evoking the reality of living in a war zone.  Which is a terrible thing to experience, even through a film, so if you want to avoid that, read this instead!  Or if it isn’t playing near you, or if you are bored, or whatever.  The point is, I am recreating the experience of watching the film without actually making you watch the film.

Enjoy!

(part 1 here, part 3 here, bullet points here, and review here)

We left off with Akshay snot-crying over his daughter’s torn up teddy bear, assuming the worst (which is pretty bad in this case).  He finally pulls himself together, and we see him driving through the city again.  He drives for a while, then gets out and switches cars, drives again, gets out and switches again.  I think it is showing that there is no gas, so he has to keep stealing cars just to keep moving.  But it could also be that he is afraid of being followed.  I’m not sure.

Through out the drive, we have more through the car window shots of what is happening in the city.  I actually really like this way of showing it.  Our main characters are in their car, focused on just their own goals and what they need to survive, and can’t afford to stop and get involved with others.  But they see it all, and so does the camera, so we know that the rest of the city is in even worth shape, and that the filmmaker knows that too, but can’t afford to spend more time on it, just as our characters can’t afford to spend more time investigating what is happening outside of their own interests.

Finally, Akshay arrives at a building and goes inside, we see his name on the door, so I guess it is his office.  His chief assistant greets him, in Hindi, and then he sees Nimrat at a door in the back!  The embrace, and she immediately starts talking to him.  And thus begins the destruction of the Nimrat character!  While Akshay is clearly in shock and and has seen terrible things, Nimrat doesn’t care about any of that, she is all about complaining about people bursting into their home and how she wants to leave for London now!  It makes Akshay look good, because he seems to be suffering all the more in contrast with her obliviousness.  But it makes her look soooooooo bad!  I get that we saw in the early scenes that their marriage involved her being as strong and loud as necessary to break through his blind self-interest, but can’t she see that her husband is in shock right now?  It’s, like, really obvious!  Her character as a whole would have been so much stronger if she had started to complain, and then stopped after like 10 seconds when she got a good look at his face and let him tell her what had happened.  But, nooooo.  It’s not until she thinks to ask about the driver that he actually is allowed to get a word in edgewise.  And even then, she assumes when he says that the driver was shot, that he means he was injured and is in the hospital, which forces him to tell the whole horrible story again.

(I mean, she looks good in the sense that her appearance is very good.  But not in the sense that she appears to be a decent person)

Cut to, an adorable little girl in the clearly less wealthy Indian neighborhood of the city standing on the balcony and calling out to her mother that someone is arriving.  Okay, going back to the India-within-another-country idea, and the Middle East as more Indian influenced, this neighborhood is really interesting.  It looks almost Indian, but not quite.  Actually, it looks a lot like the neighborhood around my apartment!  Which is my city’s big Indian immigrant area (yes, I did move here for convenience of movie rentals).  And while this whole movie Nimrat has been wearing western clothing with a middle eastern touch, the mother of the little girl comes out wearing a white cotton sari.  Akshay sort of leans against the side of the building and looks at her and sighs.  And at this point, my friend who came with me leaned over and said “Oh my god, is that his mistress?”  How cool would that have been!  Some sort of awesome rich business man with a girl on the side who he has to bring in to be with his regular family for her own safety during war?  But also, NO!  Of course not!!!  We just had a conversation about the dead driver, of course this is his family!

Akshay takes them back to the office.  And then, black label!  He is holding a box and offering it to scary General guy, while asking, basically, what would it take to get his family out.  The General offers to charge a hundred thousand a head, so three hundred thousand for three people.  Akshay tentatively agrees, but corrects that it would be 5 people, because he needs to bring his driver’s family also.  The general is amused by this and suggests that he give up on “social work”.

Back to the office.  Akshay rushes in, asking his chief assistant how much cash do they have on hand and what can they get on short notice.  Akshay, I kind of hate you right now.  Not that you want to get your family out, but that you are making your assistant do the work that will end up gutting his only security at this moment by removing you from Kuwait while he is still stuck!  But before he can go too far down this selfish path, he notices that there are a lot of other people also, and asks his chief assistant about it.  Assistant says, it is all the employees, they came there for safety, because they trust him (Akshay).  Akshay takes a moment, and then asks him to get a list of all the family members of their employees and bring them all in too.  And then he goes to talk to his terrible wife.

Of course, she is all about “let’s just leave!  This place sucks!”  Akshay promises they will, but asks for a few days to get his employees set up.  Nimrat doesn’t even understand this, forcing him to lay it out “we asked them to come here and work for us, we have a responsibility.”  Again, she is serving as a changing mindset of the hero extractor, which just serves to make Akshay look better and better as he explains himself, but really torpedoes her character who apparently cannot conceive of basic human decency without having it all laid out for her.

Some days later, they are apparently all set up at the office.  You see people squeezed in, sleeping under desks and in hallways.  There is a brief sequence of people talking in the middle of the night, as a little boy tries to find enough space to stretch out, and a random guy across the way offers to make space.  It is very “Indian culture is about adjusting and making space and living together in harmony.”

The next morning, Akshay is struggling to walk through the office with people everywhere.  Oh, I forgot, evil General guy told him to go ahead and keep living in his house, evil General gave his word nothing they would be safe, so Akshay and the bratty wife aren’t part of the teeming masses.

He is stopped on his struggle by a random middle-aged man (we will learn in about an hour that his name is “George”, but I don’t want to call him random middle-aged man until then, so I am spoiling it for you know: his name is George!).  The George actor perfectly nails that sort of quiet voiced drawling way of complaining that makes you want to punch the guy in the face.  You know the TV show Wings?  They had a recurring character, Carlton Blanchard, who also did it perfectly.  If you have access to Wings episodes one way or another, check out season 3 episode 17 and you will see what I mean with this guy.  George is complaining to Akshay, because Akshay is the guy in charge and should fix things for his convenience (the convenience of George).  And the toilets are stopped up.  This reminds Akshay to also check with his assistant about how the food stores are doing.  And they are low.  So we have trouble from both ends! (sorry, I couldn’t resist).  His assistant also tells him that more and more people are arriving every day as word spreads through the immigrant community that there might be a safe place to stay at his office.

(this character!  In Wings, not Airlift)

And Akshay is in the car again!  He pulls it up outside a supermarket, and I have a moment of thinking he is about to do a big action scene and steal the supplies or something!  Kill someone with a cucumber!  But no, it’s not that type of an Akshay movie.  Instead, he just goes inside and quietly talks to some guys.  Inside are his two best wealthy businessmen friends (we saw them at the party), drinking and enjoying themselves, in front of shelves covered in food.  At first, I think this is some sort of terrible hoarding thing going on, but then one of the friends sends random guy “Ibrahim” to the back to get Akshay’s portion for the day, and the conversation goes on, and I think what is happening is that all 3 businessman are trying to support massive groups of people and splitting the stores of one of their supermarkets between them.  It’s interesting, this movie is dealing with such a huge sort of logistical problem, they couldn’t possibly show every little victory and defeat, how they managed to find food every day, water, medical supplies, so it is just implied in little scenes like this.  But you have to pay really close attention to even notice it!  You should also pay attention to the background players, that “Ibrahim” who just seemed like a random chumcha is actually going to develop into a more and more important person.

(also, he is played by this guy.  Nice, right?  And apparently was in Sense8!  Which I still haven’t seen, but have heard was good)

And there is a line here that is important in showing how Akshay is developing.  Although, again, it only comes out because his scene partner has to be horrible.  Akshay suggests that rather than split the food stores every day, they combine their various refugee groups into one place and bring all the food there.  The response is to say why bother, this will all blow over soon.  Akshay argues that it may not and “We Indians” (Hum Hindustani) need to stick together.  Both words are equally interesting.  That he want from only caring about himself to thinking in terms of “we”, and that he is now identifying as Hindustani.  His friends ask him where this came from, isn’t he Kuwaiti?  Also, what is the Indian government doing for them, didn’t the whole embassy pack up and leave?  Akshay’s response is to say “When one is hurt, doesn’t one first call out for one’s mother?” Wow wow wow!  Kya line hai!

But, this scene kind of underlies an overall issue I have with this movie.  And this might just be because I am an American, and Americans are taught from childhood that your national identity is fluid.  Or rather, it is firm, once you have determined it.  If you say you are American, you are American.  There’s no going back.  Your former loyalty and identity has to die.  I mean, my great-grandfather enlisted in WWI, and his grandfather had been born and raised in Germany.  It would be like if Akshay’s daughter’s daughter in this was still living in Kuwait and volunteered to serve in their army when they went to war against India.  And that’s, like, normal for me.  So, this whole idea of discovering a limited community and a desire for your “homeland” after living in a country for decades, it is just really hard for me to grapple with.  I guess a big difference is that most people in America agree on my attitude.  So if you say you are American, you can be legally American, and you can be socially and culturally accepted as American.  I know we have all sorts of immigration issues, but it’s not like places where there is absolutely no way to legally become a citizen unless your family has been there for generations, and where it is a really big deal if you don’t look like everyone else.  But maybe if I was living in a country like Kuwait where citizenship was almost impossible to obtain and I was visibly not a member of the dominant community, I would be more willing to limit my identity to my original country and my original countrymen?

Anyway, that is definitely Akshay’s reaction, as shown through those two lines.  And he manages to convince his friends.  Next step, is to go talk to the scary General again.  Who gives him a hard time for not bringing him more Black Label.  Everybody loves Black Label!  I bet that’s what they were drinking at the supermarket, should have saved some for bribes!  But, the general forgives him, and agrees with his logic that it makes sense to move all the refugees to one central location, and gives him permission to move them and pick any place he likes.

(Black label!)

We see busses rolling up and people moving in, and are introduced to our little group of everyman refugees.  There is Poonewala, who is a quiet older man with a college age seeming daughter, whiny George who we already met and his nice wife and teenage daughter, and Ibrahim again who is being useful and helping everyone get settled.  And two young women, one with a baby, who are making themselves comfortable in a tiny side room.  Ibrahim offers to help the mother with the baby while they get settled (because he is awesome!) and they chase him away.  Ibrahim clearly knows something funky is going on with this group, but decides to ignore it because it’s a woman with a baby and she needs help.  Ibrahim is the best.  George is the worst, by the way, and tries to take a room from the driver’s widow and daughter because he got there first and it should be first come first served, not need based.  Oh George!  You represent all the worst qualities of the common man!

Speaking of terrible qualities, Nimrat is here.  She drives up with their daughter in a big fancy car, looking disturbed and also elegant.  She stares at all of the mass of people, and then notices their daughter is missing.  She calls and calls for her, finally finding her in a burnt out shell of a bus.  Daughter achieved, she goes to look for her husband, and finally finds him, just to tell him “we’re not staying here.”  Well that was totally worth interrupting his organizing of life saving measures!  And then she continues to distract him by whining about how it’s scary and icky here, and she wants to go home, with her husband, and also, she just found their daughter playing WITH A BULLET!  Okay, I would have lead with that last part.  Again, just a little change and this character could have been so much more tolerable!  Imagine if we saw her find the daughter, ask the husband to go home, realize he was distracted, look at the seething mass of people and realize her problems don’t amount to a hill of beans, and then just give him a supportive hug and tell him she will see him at home.  And only we the audience would see her look at the bullet as she walks away, and understand that she decided to swallow her own concerns and worries so that her husband can focus on everyone else.  But, no, then we wouldn’t have gotten yet another scene of Akshay explaining that he has to stay and take care of these people because he is super awesome now!  And you are a terrible small person for not immediately understanding that.

Once everyone is settled, Akshay and his friends decide it is time to try to reach someone in India again.  Yay, bureaucracy!  No really, the point of this recurring bit is “yay, bureaucrats!”  We see a crowded room with rows and rows of desks stacked with ledgers.  The phone rings on someone’s desk, he slowly reaches over, and finally answers.  But, it’s an issue for the middle east desk, and he’s not on that.  Good luck!  So Akshay goes back to figuring things out for himself.  Oh, and this character’s name is Kohli (and the hot Ibrahim actor’s real life name is also Kohli, this is so confusing!).

I think there is one more scene of Akshay calling Kohli, updating him that the refugees are settled in now, and then we see him at his home.  He is watching TV, a news story about the war, when his father comes in from sitting outside.  He asks his father if he enjoyed the porch, and gets a complaint in response about how tiny the apartment was, not like their home back in Lahore.  Kohli rolls his eyes at this (in a respectful manner) and changes the subject to the news story on TV and how this guy keeps calling him, and he really can’t do anything for him, but it’s kind of sad.  And his Dad says, really quietly, “It can be a hard thing to get used to, losing the home you thought you had.”  I may not have got the line just right, but it was really nicely put.  Actually, this whole scene is very nicely done, evoking the shadow of Partition without judgement, just reminding us that people in India know what it’s like to suddenly have your world turned upside down.  And also showing that Kohli understands it, not as someone who went through it, but as someone who has seen how it is a constant loss for his father.  That early eye rolling bit didn’t feel like “oh Dad, I don’t care about your trauma!” but more like “oh Dad, I know you think about this every minute, I am going to try to distract you as much as possible.”

After our little trip to India, we are back to Kuwait.  Akshay’s wife has come to visit him at the refugee camp.  She looks around at the people sitting under shade on the steps, moving in and out, and asks him (again!  Let it go woman!) why he is doing this.  Akshay tries to explain, saying “Hum log” and “Humare Log”.  Another interesting terminology shift!  “Hum Log” just means “we people”, and “Humare Log” is simply “our people”.  He is no longer even using “Hindustani”, he has identified so completely with the community that it is beyond identifiers, they are simply his people.

In the middle of their conversation, trucks pull up with scary gun wielding teenage soldiers!  Akshay immediately thrusts his wife behind his back and tries to say that they have permission to be here, but the soldiers don’t care.  They run inside, where Ibrahim grabs a couple guys and whispers to them to hide as much of the food as possible.  And then, seeing the mysterious baby woman walking by, grabs her and shoves her behind him, hiding her from the army guys.  Meanwhile, Poonewala’s daughter is walking through the back, near the kitchens, and didn’t hear anyone arrive, so she is surprised when a soldier suddenly shows up.  He sort of grabs her and moves her up against a pillar.  He is feeling her up, and sort of grinding against her, but before it can go any farther, he is called away.  Worst of all, they take all the food.  A bunch of men are forced to drag bags of it out and load it into the trucks.  This is very not good.

And I think we are almost an hour in now, the next section should take us past the interval.  So, sometime Monday, we should be all done!