‘Hanging By a Wire’ Brings a Pakistani Rescue Down to the Brink

Mohammed Ali Naqvi’s “Hanging By a Wire” is a nail-biter and a crowd-pleaser. The latter designation may be counted by some as a spoiler, but the story that is told in Mr. Naqvi’s documentary was, if not on the front pages in 2023, then close to it. Old news doesn’t necessarily make for slack cinema. “Hanging By a Wire” is a heartening advertisement for human ingenuity. Admittedly, this ingenuity is not always wisely applied. Take the makeshift cable cars that are employed by the citizens of a remote village in Pakistan, Battagram. A newscaster for an Urdu language news channel based in Karachi, Sumira Khan, describes Battagram as “one of the most beautiful areas of the world.” You might think Ms. Khan is biased, she’s a native of the place, but the opening shots of “Hanging By a Wire” offer up an idyllic landscape located just west of the Himalayas. “It is,” Ms. Khan avers, “heaven on earth.”Battagram is isolated and undeveloped: There are no roadways and few conveniences. Mr. Naqvi’s camera alights upon its denizens traversing, climbing and otherwise navigating rocky pathways and forest glens. The nearest school is a two-hour hike, so a series of cable cars have been constructed so that the travel time is shaved down to four minutes. These vehicles aren’t made by top-flight engineers; they’re homemade contraptions for which safety is less important than utility. Watching a cadre of tweens casually enter one of these shabby metal boxes is hard-going.“Hanging By a Wire” documents a single day in the lives of the citizens of Battagram and, in particular, the six boys and two men who were trapped 900 feet in the air when the cables on their car snapped in the middle of their commute. The mere thought of this is likely to set a viewer on edge and videos taken from a distance amplify the apprehension. Footage taken by a local citizen in possession of a drone camera is, as Ms. Khan relates, terrifying and extraordinary. Mr. Naqvi forgoes soundtrack music for ambient sound in these scenes. The pictures are haunting in their clarity and quietude. Mr. Naqvi’s film is about human fortitude and determination, but it is also very much about life in the digital age. The world wide web is, as it turns out, truly world wide. Photos and films of the Battagram situation were broadcast almost instantaneously and then in real time. We see snippets of newscasts from around the globe before we alight upon the District of Battagram’s Chief of Police, Sonia Shamroz, who sends a troop of officers out to assess the situation. Those trapped inside the tram are sending out their own videos and photos. Anxieties are running high.So high, that the rubber-neckers, relatives and parents of those trapped in the cable car are increasingly angered by what they see as lollygagging on the part of the authorities. Desperate measures can bring out the best in people and sometimes those people are a bit off the beam. A local repairman, Sahib Khan, attempts a one-man rescue mission under circumstances that are alarmingly jerry-rigged. Later, a zip-line entrepreneur, gym owner and unapologetic macho man, Ali Swati, is enlisted for the rescue and executes feats of derring-do in the dark of night. Try not to be in awe of Mssrs. Khan and Swati. It’s impossible.Mr. Naqvi and his editor, Will Grayburn, parlay news segments and up-close-and-personal interviews with participants both on the ground and those who were subsequently reacquainted with it. Composer Sven Faulconer strikes too moody of a pitch, but the human drama of the situation is undeniable. Extreme circumstance outshines cinematic know-how in “Hanging By a Wire,” but gripping it most certainly is.

‘Hanging By a Wire’ Brings a Pakistani Rescue Down to the Brink

‘Hanging By a Wire’ Brings a Pakistani Rescue Down to the Brink

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