Cinema either reflects the world or paves the way for it – who can say? Yet, every now and then, an uncanny prophecy foretold by creative writers and filmmakers makes one sit up, take notice and applaud their exemplary foresight. Spot on in both execution and imagination.
During the calamitous Covid-19 days, as I drove on the near-empty roads of the City Beautiful, the desolation in the air reminded me of several Hollywood films, including ‘Contagion’. Luckily for me – as in many doomsday movies – I survived the onslaught of the deadly virus and lived to tell the tale. But cinema often tells stories we cannot even dream of in our mundane daily existence.
When US President Donald Trump invaded Venezuela, most of us were aghast at his brazen audacity. We were equally intrigued when a clip from the 2019 season of the hugely popular series ‘Jack Ryan’ went viral, appearing almost prophetic. The reel, watched by millions, had nothing to do with the President but everything to do with geopolitics, Venezuela in particular.
In a telling lecture, Tom Clancy’s fictional CIA analyst Jack Ryan tells students Russia and China are not the biggest threats on the world stage, but floundering economies such as Venezuela, leaving the door open in our very own backyard. In the same breath, he explains Venezuela is rich in mineral resources and holds the world’s largest oil reserves, and that this very wealth underpins its economic instability. The clincher follows: “Unstable governments are nothing more than the greatest of opportunities.”
As we live in an increasingly volatile world, countries invading sovereign nations at the slightest provocation, often without justification, is fast becoming a horrific reality. While Trump has also threatened Colombia, another espionage thriller, The Night Manager Season 2, depicts the involvement of corrupt MI6 officials in a bid to orchestrate a civil war in Colombia. The plot to overthrow the Colombian government through an arms shipment may fail in this reel depiction. What we can safely speculate, however, is that the hero Jonathan Pine would, in all likelihood, avert the impending crisis.
What is remarkable is the creator’s understanding of world politics. If The Simpsons predicted the chaos of the Trump administration in advance, The Night Manager Season 2 summed up the current global situation with just three words: “commercialisation of chaos”.
Unrest and profit are two sides of the same coin. When US-based Indian engineers-turned-filmmakers Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, while discussing The Family Man Season 3, state most wars are driven by business interests, they are not far from the truth. Though they insist the situation depicted in their series is fictional, it is undeniably rooted in a semblance of reality. There is also little denying their assertion that “today corporates have more control – more than governments”.
Interestingly, the same idea finds reflection in Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy, where the question “Who runs the country?” receives a cryptic response: ‘”Desh woh chala rahe hain jo sarkar ko paalte hain” – those who finance the government truly run the nation. Today, as Trump openly talks about taking control of Venezuela’s petroleum resources, there are no prizes for guessing who would benefit the most.
Perhaps, when writers wear their thinking caps, the intention is not to don a soothsayer’s cloak. A co-creator of Jack Ryan once said in an interview, “The goal wasn’t prophecy but plausibility.” Yet, more often than not, they hit the nail on the head through a deep understanding of the present and how it could shape the future. The art of prognostication lies in reading today’s pulse.
In India, films such as Robot (2010) and Ra.One (2011) flirted with technological advancements long before these became tangible realities. Several Tamil films including the biting satire Vaayai Moodi Pesavum and 7aum Arivu foreshadowed pandemic-like situations reminiscent of the global Covid-19 outbreak. Tamil blockbuster Sivaji: The Boss even featured a plot involving the abolition of large currency notes to curb black money, years before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious demonetisation policy.
By tapping into political possibilities and social anxieties, storytellers often become fortune-tellers, not by design, but by the application of mind and unfettered imagination. So, the next time you watch a film or series, Bollywood or Hollywood and its plot appears outlandish – as with Kalki 2898 – do not rush to judgement. Somewhere in the folds of the future may lie its ultimate acid test.