I was able to make it to Stanford for the screening of the movie “Dinner with the President” after struggling through a rough day at work.
The movie itself was well edited and captured a fairly well covered perspective among the educated elites of Pakistan who have access to the corridors of power in that country. The movie begins with the saga on October 12 1999 when in a bloodless coup, General Musharaf overthrew the government of Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Muslim League. The movie focuses in on (possibly) Mz. Sabiha Sumar’s (Co-Filmmaker with Sachithanandam Sathananthan) family in Pakistan debating the merits and demerits of the coup and Democracy in Pakistan. It moves on to Mz. Sumar’s dinner with the President himself. The dinner is shown to be a cordial affair with President Musharraf’s wife and Mother in attendance as well. The President goes through several points that Pakistani public and audience have heard him repeat several times over the course of the past several years. For an American audience, however, and there were plenty of them there at this screening, some of it may have been new information.
Musharraf is shown on three different occasions, one during this dinner appointment somewhere in 2005. His dinner footage is edited to include interviews of people from the street and also the members of a local community inside the tribal area beyond Khyber Pass. Mz. Sumar talks up some of the points with these elders and menfolk, that resonate with the audience about an Islamic state and system. There is a short snippet of an interview with Qazi Hussein Ahmed as well.
The funniest bit was provided by the Kingmaker himself, Ch. Shujaat Hussain of Gujrat. Apparently, it was impossible for him to look the lady or the camera in the eye and complete a sentence without dozing off. The audience had quite a chuckle at his expense throughout the longest couple of minutes in the movie when he was on the screen.
The second bit is from 2006 when Mz. Sumar is called upon by the President himself as he was apparently interested in how the movie was turning out. This one was a relatively short one and mostly focused on the President’s responses to quotations from the interviews done by Mz. Sumar herself throughout Pakistan.
The third bit is from 2007 after Benazir’s return where Musharraf is seen defending his move of providing cover to Benazir under NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance - This order basically retracted all the cases filed in the courts by the Pakistan government against BB and her husband Asif Ali Zardari). The filmmaker is visibly frustrated and dissappointed at this action and shares it with the President and he offers the most obvious defense - Let the people decide if they want to forgive Benazir or not since the courts could not do that in a decade.
The movie ends after the first assasination attempt at BB at her arrival in Karachi on Oct 18th 2007. There is an ending snippet which is rather powerful where a poor Sindhi family is shown having dinner in a modest hut.
In my opinion, the movie misses out on the opportunity to capture the mood in Pakistan especially after March 09th 2007. It does not provide any coverage to the events in Karachi on May 12th. In fact, there is no mention of it at all. There is one place towards the end, and before the third meeting with the President where the lawyers and their struggle is mentioned but no details are provided about what Musharraf thought of them.
The thing that stood out for me and really set the tone of the movie, atleast from my vantage point was when early in the movie on arrival at the Dinner table where Musharraf was already seated, Mz. Sumar asked her much older male companion, to desist from taking a seat and offer salaams first. I was not sure what to make of that. There is obviously the aspect of respect for your host. I can understand that. It got me thinking though. Was it a case of showing respect for a gracious host or was it an instinctive deference to the presence of power. I got my answer during the coarse of the three interviews that were done with the strong man. The questions thrown at him were such softballs that it was abundantly clear that he is not even thinking about his answers since he had become used to rattling off the answers as a routine. These were very typical questions about the opinions of the General that have been available to anyone who has spent just a tad bit of effort exploring the General’s career. He is offered chances to talk without interruption or offered corrections by Mz. Sumar.
There are tidbits of Karachi’s party culture in the movie as well with people swaying to experimental music and drugs on a beautiful seashore. There was an interesting political perspective that was expressed by an unknown girl from that group where she indicated that Democracy is a tough sell in Pakistan since 95 percent of Pakistan comprised of people barely making it from one day to next. I thought that was a very poignant admission on the part of the movie and a member of the upper class who seem to be willing to apparently admit to a problem with their noses covered with one hand and attempting to shoo away the problem with the other.
The movie was followed by a discussion with Bilal Musharraf (Musharraf’s son and a Stanford Alum himself) who attended the screening. He answered a few questions from the audience about the situation in Pakistan. He came across as a straightforward person and answered most of the questions by lacing them with his own experiences in Pakistan. He also was candid enough to admit that there were matters and concerns in and about Pakistan where he had no opinion to offer since he did not necessarily have the information or the expertise required to analyze and formulate an opinion if the information was available.
Overall, a less than decent attempt out of a golden opportunity by Mz. Sabiha Sumar and Mr. Sachithanandam Sathananthan. Here’s to hoping that they will do better in the future.
