Hanging by a Wire
Time is of the essence in Mohammed Ali Narvi’s vivid, dramatic docudrama about a cable car rescue in Pakistan.
Image courtesy of Dogwoof Releasing.
by MANSEL STIMPSON
At around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 22nd August 2023 six boys living among the Himalayan foothills in the Battagram region of Pakistan set off for school as usual travelling by cable car. But on this day before the car reached its destination a cable snapped quickly followed by a second one. The passengers all found themselves stranded as the car came to a halt some nine hundred feet above the Allai valley. The title of this documentary feature by Mohammed Ali Narvi, Hanging by a Wire, is an exact description of the critical situation in which these people found themselves. Obviously a rescue attempt needed to be made, but the conditions were so difficult and so dangerous that it was all too likely that those stuck in the car were going to die. Quite quickly the Pakistani Urdu language news channel Sanaa TV took up the story which then proceeded to attract worldwide attention. What happened in the hours that followed is now vividly recaptured in this film which blends memories of the event with detailed footage covering exactly what took place over what proved to be fourteen hours.
Early on in the film we hear from Samaa TV’s news anchor, the journalist Sumaira Khan, and from Sonia Shamroz Khan the local Pakistani police chief as well as from her deputy superintendent Muhammad Nazir both of them were on duty that day. The situation was such that the special operations force of the Pakistan Army were called on to bring in military helicopters and in this connection the film features comments from Major General Adil Rehmani. However, the time that it took to set this up and the problems provided by wind and by the risk of damaging the remaining wire led to other individual endeavours being undertaken. We meet Sahib Khan who used a small cart with a pulley system in the hope of reaching the car directly, although his first efforts raised worries about the extra weight that he was putting on the cable. Nevertheless, he did not give up and later in the day made another unauthorised attempt adopting a different approach. Also significantly involved and brought in by the police were Muhammed Ali Swati, an entrepreneur with special knowledge of zip lines, and his associate Muhammed Ilyas. Swati’s participation - for which he would win much praise - would be seen by him and by his father as compensating for the fact that he had previously been found unfit for military service. Even more personally concerned and making contributions to the film are the fathers of three of the trapped boys, Abdul Qayyum, Umraiz Khan and Umar Zeib. In addition, we do hear eventually from the surviving students themselves in footage which reveals the extent to which they have come to be haunted by the experience.
As is apparent from the above, Hanging by a Wire belongs to that relatively small group of documentaries which deal with crisis situations in which people are in danger of losing their lives and need to be rescued. That was central in 2019's Last Breath about an endangered diver in in the North Sea, but the best exemplar in this sphere is probably 2021’s The Rescue made by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. In that instance those whose lives were at risk were twelve youths and their football coach who were trapped in flooded underground caves in Thailand. But whatever the location all documentaries of this kind have to find a balance between footage taken at the time of the event and whatever fresh interview scenes have been filmed. There is also the question of whether or not reconstructions are required to tell the story fully. Furthermore, when you are handling material that is inherently dramatic in itself, you need to decide whether or not to let the piece speak for itself or instead to underline the drama, the latter often being done through a film’s music score.
Restraint was very much part of the approach in The Rescue even though the material was powerful enough for Ron Howard to treat the same event the following year in a film which used actors, Thirteen Lives. The deeply felt yet quiet tone of The Rescue pleased me greatly and I have to say that personally I prefer that to the more overtly dramatic mode adopted by Mohammed Ali Narvi here. But I must acknowledge that this is a matter of taste and, given Navri’s chosen style, I think that his film should be recognised as being for the most part a good example of it. Nevertheless, there are for me irritating moments as when shots are inserted to illustrate what is being said yet are clearly bogus (one example of this comes early on when Sumaira Khan speaks of driving in on the day and a shot of a woman in a car is included to represent that). Elsewhere there is more justification for recreations, especially when it comes to night-time scenes which could only be portrayed clearly by asking the real people to re-enact them for the camera. Even so one finds that the closing credits include a reference to stunt doubles.
What really counts, however, is that Hanging by a Wire has its own clear focus and handles it well. While including enough footage of the students, their fathers and other figures central to the story, the prime purpose here is to portray in detail and in chronological order the processes that were followed by the various rescue forces concerned and to do this in a suitably succinct and direct way. Wisely the running length does not exceed 78 minutes and what might have become a confusing narrative as we move from one group to another remains crystal clear. On its own terms this is a good film and most viewers will find that, however overt its methods, it does indeed convey the tension of the occasion and sustains it throughout.
Featuring Sonia Shamroz Khan, Sahib Khan, Muhammed Ali Swati, Muhammad Ilyas, Abdul Qayyum, Sumaira Khan, Adil Rehmani, Muhammad Nazir, Zain Ali, Aslam Swati, Umraiz Khan, Umar Zeib.
Dir Mohammed Ali Narvi, Pro Mohammed Ali Narvi and Bilal Sami, Written by Mohammed Ali Narvi and Bilal Sami, Ph Brendan McGinty, Ed Will Grayburn, Music Sven Faulconer.
EverWonder Studio/Universal Pictures Content Group/Mindhouse Productions/64th Street Media-Dogwoof Releasing.
78 mins. Pakistan/UK/USA. 2026. UK Rel: 28 August 2026. Cert. 15.
