Air India 182: Take 2

I've been thinking about my review of Air India 182, and talking to colleagues, and I feel more and more that I missed the boat. I never thought I'd be writing reconsiderations, but I am trying to make this blog as honest and useful as I can - and I guess that sometimes means writing an addendum.

From a craft standpoint, Air India 182 is most certainly an impressive film: well thought out, and masterfully shot and edited. But the film's scope is extremely narrow: it tells the story of how the bombing of Air India 182 was carried out, why Canadian authorities were unable to stop it, and the effect it had on the families of the victims. That's it. It provides little context, and gives us nothing new aside from an interview with a CSIS agent. Aside from that one interview, it's a story we've heard many times, albeit usually in bits and pieces, over the last 23 years. And so the question is, after 23 years... that's it?

Surely, with a budget rumoured to be in the range of $2-million, the film could have accomplished more than that. It could have explored in much greater depth the growth of Sikh radicalism in the B.C. temples, and its roots in the Punjab - in other words, the environment in which the plot was hatched, and the culture of fear and silence that protected the perpetrators. It could have looked more closely at the failed investigation, and the lackadaisical attitude of the Canadian government, which sent condolences to the Indian government but not to the families of the hundreds of Canadian victims. In other words, it could have explored the culture that produced the terrorists and the one that allowed them to get away with mass murder. But the film barely touches on these aspects. Director Sturla Gunnarsson, whose wife (and Associate Producer) is a Sikh British Columbian, acknowledged his anger at the Canadian government in media interviews, but in the Q&A at Hot Docs all he had to say was, to paraphrase, CSIS and the RCMP didn't bomb the plane, the terrorists did. It's almost as if Air India 182 goes out of its way not to disturb the peace.

I can't help but think that the $2 million spent on this film could have paid for three or four films with less expensive visuals and more depth.

And another problem: the Ken Burns Effect. No, I'm not talking about the photo-manipulation tool in iMovie. The real Ken Burns Effect is this: when Burns tackles a subject - say, baseball, or the Second World War - it effectively puts the kybosh on any other filmmaker going to PBS for funding for any other story on the same subject. Burns, by eating up huge amounts of money and presenting his film as the definitive story, sucks the oxygen out of the room and - inadvertently, to be sure - shuts down debate. (The Canadian corollary is the People's History effect, but Ken Burns is more famous than Mark Starowicz, and he did it first.) Now that $2 million has been spent on the "definitive" Air India story, how likely is it that anyone else will be able to get funding for a different take?

Air India 182

Sturla Gunnarsson is definitely not one of those people who've had to wait for success. His first film, After the Axe, was nominated for an Oscar in 1982, and since then he's gone on to a stellar career as a director of both documentaries and drama. So it's no surprise that his new film, Air India 182, is masterfully crafted. Though very much a television project - one of those high-profile, big-name productions the CBC's Documentary Unit loves to throw bags of money at - this is a film that looks great on a big screen.

Much has been written and broadcast over the past 23 years about Air India Flight 182, which blew up off the coast of Ireland with 329 people on board in June, 1985 - the worst terrorist attack in North America before 9/11. There have been a few documentaries about it, notably Shelley Saywell's Legacy of Terror, made in 1999, and most recently an episode of the factual series Mayday. But Air India 182, with its A-list director, A-list budget and authoritative title, clearly has ambitions of being the definitive one.

Gunnarsson chooses to tell the story in straightfoward fashion, boiling the story down to the bare essentials: a step-by-step account of the last few hours of the lives of the victims, told by their families, intercut with a reconstruction of the planning and execution of the crime, based on evidence presented at the two trials and the recent judicial inquiry.

The most significant new element that Gunnarsson brings to the film is the dramatic re-enactments, which are very elaborate, well-cast, and at times extremely moving. Score one for the master drama director. Also impressive is the interview with a senior CSIS official (now retired? I don't recall), who provides a lot of context and details about the investigation. How did Gunnarsson get this guy? Normally, CSIS people aren't even allowed to admit they work for CSIS. Score one for the master documentarian. There's no question the film works well on its own terms.

But here's where the discussion goes over post-screening drinks: Where else could this film have gone? Why did Gunnarsson stick to the narrow storyline he chose, instead of A) delving more deeply into mainstream Canada's (non-)reaction to this horrendous crime and the seriously messed up investigation, which produced only one conviction, or B) looking more deeply into the roots of the conflict between extremist Sikhs and the Indian state, the politics of British Columbia's Sikh temples, etc. Based on my quick survey, non-Indian Canadians tend to want to know more about the former, immigrants from India about the latter.

I'm not a fan of judging films based on what I think they should be, rather than what the filmmaker intended. But I do wonder: how many other, more revealing, films could come out of this horrendous event?