Tigers – storytelling at its finest

When dealing with extraordinary true stories, it’s easy to go overboard and overdo it – embellish facts and flout the rules. It’s easy to get caught in an overzealous attempt to be self-righteous and show up the hero while downplaying the bad guys. But as stirring as the premise of this movie seems, Tigers is a nuanced take on a complex and layered real-world problem. One that, they like to remind us continues even today.

Telling it like it is Oscar-winning and critically acclaimed director Danis Tanovic exercises all his directorial skills and brings to life the story of Pakistani salesman Syed Aamir Raza Hussain who blew the whistle against his multinational employer. The movie takes an honest look at his life and evolution from a simple naive young salesman to a forward-thinking activist who risks everything, to tell the truth. There is plenty of drama at the heart of the story but no frills and flounces to shock audiences unnecessarily. The film goes beyond the superficial recounting of the facts to try and reveal the tender underbelly of what really goes on in the world. How big corporations’ conduct unscrupulous branding exercises in developing nations, how little it takes to bribe your way into a system and how okay everyone is to be complicit in what can only be described as a murder of innocents. The result is a courageous narration of a heart-breaking story through a medium that lends itself perfectly to the dissemination of all of its messages and ideas. Real life heroes In real life, Syed Amir Raza Hussain unwittingly found himself at the centre of a web of lies and deceit that was targeting poor mothers and eventually killing innocent babies. He was selling, pushing and promoting the idea that baby formula was better than breastfeeding for infants despite the fact that these people had little access to potable water. In spite of all the success he stood to enjoy with a multinational company, he chose to break free bring this atrocity to light. In another time, both his story and the larger one about bullying consumerist giants would have died a silent death. But through great acting chops on the parts of Emraan Hashmi, Adil Hussain and Vinod Nagpal and bold directorial moves from Bosnian director Danis Tanovic the story is transformed from real to reel effortlessly. Staying true to the facts Bollywood narration is sometimes given to extremes - shock value, over the top costuming and often bending reality too far in order to make an entertaining film. As long it sells to packed theatres and rave reviews, who’s paying attention to the details anyway, right? As a movie, Tigers does its best to move away from conventional moviemaking and goes the extra mile to present a sincere piece of work. Besides being shot in locations like Punjab to keep the authenticity alive, Tanovic also used real footage from the 1989 Australian ABC documentary in the scenes where Maggi and Faiz (characters from the film) are watching on television as well as sent in their own team to film in hospitals in Pakistan in 2013 to weave together a refined re-telling of reality. In many ways, when you strip away the outer shell of this impactful tale of a small-town activist, the film still delivers a sincere attempt at telling a story for a cause that is greater than fame and profit. Subscribe to ZEE5 and get access to watch Tigers over and over again. We already love it, but we think you will too! This is a partnered post.