The outbreak of war in the Middle East, a foreign uncle who fights alone to protect his own expatriates, sounds like a common plot of Hollywood movies, but this time the protagonist is an Indian.
Some people say that this is an Indian version of "Escape from Tehran", which is actually not the same. In the movie "Escape from Tehran", the audience sees the strength of the US government and the protection of overseas citizens, the whole film is very main theme; but in this "Evacuation of Kuwait", the Indian government is weak and incompetent and bureaucratic does not care about the situation of its own citizens in the war zone, and people can only rely on themselves.
The story is set on the eve of the Gulf War, where the protagonist is an Indian boss, mansion and private driver doing business in Kuwait, hosting parties and balls, doing business with the prince, typical of successful foreign merchants in the Middle East, but the war stopped all this.
One night without warning, Iraqi troops began to attack Kuwait, a powerful army that had experienced the Iran-Iraq War, met with only symbolic resistance, and the Kuwaiti royal family fled in a hurry, abandoning its own people and nearly a million foreign laborers.
Our protagonist, the Indian uncle, got the shocking news in his sleep, he tried to send his family out of Kuwait, but on the way his driver was killed, and he himself was extorted for money by an acquaintance Iraqi officer, but in the end he finally got a pass and security protection.
When he returned to the company, he found his employees gathered in the company, panicked and helpless, and people were looking at him, expecting the boss to protect them and send them back home. There were more and more people in the company, and soon a station of Indian refugees was formed.
What followed was a bunch of bad news, the Indian Embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not care about these natives at all, the embassy directly left the expatriates in Kuwait and moved to Baghdad, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not answer the phone and was unwilling to solve the matter. A cargo ship could have carried them home, but the United Nations declared an embargo and the ship could not dock.
If you think about the ending of the movie, you can see that the Indian uncle finally sent these compatriots back to China, and the plot in the middle is not a spoiler. The real history is like this, during the Gulf War, the Indian government transported back 111,000 expatriates in 59 days with civil airliners.
Most of the stories of saving civilians in previous wars are two situations, one is that the protagonist protects his family, and the other is that the state sends an army to protect its own expatriates. This film is a rare one, the protagonist is just an ordinary businessman, but like a leader to lead the countrymen back to their hometown.
In this film, a deeper discussion is the identity consciousness of overseas Indians. The protagonist has lived in Kuwait for a long time, and originally did not care about the identity of "Indian", he regarded himself as a Kuwaiti, and even hated the driver playing Indian music in the car at first.
However, during the war, the protagonist's national consciousness is awakened, he realizes that he is an Indian, he needs to protect his compatriots in Kuwait, and the Indians should get together and try to find a way to go home.
In fact, for India, a unified concept of nationality is difficult to form, the country has too many nationalities, religions, tribes and even ethnic groups. In the film, the passports of the laborers are in the intermediary, they have no identification at all, the Iraqi army allows the Indians to return home but cannot let the Kuwaitis go, and a young man asks the protagonist: "How do we prove that we are not Kuwaiti?" Similarly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to issue temporary passports on the grounds that "how do you prove that they are not Pakistanis or Bengalis?" ”。
As a region with large populations, the three countries of South Asia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, have been sending labor to the Middle East, which has also affected the attitudes of these three countries on certain issues. For example, only Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan were recognized by the Taliban, and for Pakistan, there may be border security and consideration of its own forces, but relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also diplomatic influencing factors; for example, India has ambiguous relations with Iraq in the Gulf War, and Saddam Hussein, who has labor and trade needs, is also friendly to Indians; as for Bangladesh, natural disasters are very common, and labor foreign exchange is the mainstay of the economy.
There is a saying that India is a country of one billion people, a society of one hundred million people, a hundred million middle class that constitutes the whole of India, and that the nine hundred million poor people do not create much value and do not consume much value, and they are self-destructive. Of course, this statement may be biased, but it also reflects India's huge social problems, the gap between rich and poor is too large, and colonial history has left this solidification of social classes - rich masters and obedient servants, each at ease.
Of course, this film also has a lot of elements of industrialized films, such as the pride of the nation and the country, such as the tall image of the protagonist, such as the fixed dancing scene of Indian movies, and so on. Although these are not tacky for the audience, they are not obtrusive, and the rhythm is very appropriate.
After the outbreak of war, the protagonist's businessmen and friends enjoy whisky in the supermarket, waiting for the Intervention of the United States, who do not expect the Indian government or their own laborers. Perhaps this is the psychological norm of overseas businessmen in most developing countries, there is no strong domestic government behind them, they do not care about other ordinary people in their own countries, and the status of "world citizen" is the business of the host country and the stable "power peace" under the leadership of the United States.
However, what dealt a slight blow to the national enthusiasm of this film is that it is still the US-led multinational force that finally liberates Kuwait.
In the early morning of August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops occupied Kuwait, the US military began to protect Saudi Arabia at 8 p.m., four days later the United Nations began to impose sanctions on Iraq, the Gulf War broke out on January 17, 1991, Iraq agreed to mediate a conditional withdrawal on February 15, and Iraq accepted an unconditional ceasefire agreement on February 28, ending the Gulf War.
Iraq, then known as the world's fourth-largest military power, collapsed after only 100 hours of ground operations after 42 sky attacks.