A documentary recounting the fate of eight people left suspended over a chasm in northern Pakistan in 2023, when a wire on their cable car broke, is a tense and skilfully assembled survival story with unexpected flashes of comedy.
A conventional survival story
Survival documentaries are a niche genre of nonfiction film-making that recount accidents and natural catastrophes, and often the daring rescues of those caught up in them. Eyewitnesses and loved ones of the endangered are the top interview subjects, keeping the sense of danger and emotional stakes at the forefront. Survivors can also have their say, and more adventurous film-makers might recreate the action with actors or the actual survivors themselves.
This account of how eight people – six teenage boys and two adult men – were trapped is a fairly conventional example of the form. For obvious reasons, no one attempts to recreate the situation, but because it is recent, there is no shortage of news footage and amateur clips to fill out the details. The drawback of covering such a recent story is that some viewers may remember what happened anyway, but there is still plenty of nail-biting suspense, and sequences that will unsettle anyone with acrophobia – especially the drone shots that zoom close on the terrified faces of those inside the dangling car.
Direction and editing
Director Mohammed Ali Naqvi deserves credit for pulling it all together adeptly, as does the seamless editing by William Grayburn, which nourishes the suspense and draws out some of the surprising moments of comedy. It is good to have a bit of a laugh amid the tension; we meet one heroic zip line enthusiast who brags about his amazing body as he struts around the gym he runs, looking buff but not outrageously so. The fact that he is introduced halfway through the story lets us know he will survive, as will his best buddy, who has a lot less braggadocio.
At one point, the two are surprised to find a third would-be rescuer on top of the precarious cable car, and they all get into an argument while the people inside hurl insults at them (correctly) for putting more strain on the already frayed cables. The one thing the film does not do – which an American or British movie would probably go big on – is investigate the safety failures that allowed all this to happen. Instead, the Pakistani interviewees just take it as bad luck that, for example, the army did not have any working walkie-talkies when they first showed up, just some of the kit that might have sped up the rescue effort.
Hanging By a Wire is in UK cinemas from 28 August.
