Vivek Agnihotri’s films aren’t really known for their subtlety. Take, for instance, when the government asks members of the National Institute of Virology to do a research and rescue mission in Iran. NIV head Dr Priya Abraham (Pallavi Joshi) asks her team members to volunteer. The men are all seated to her left, and the women to her right. The camera pans across every man, who gradually denies going on this mission, and stops on a pregnant woman who volunteers. Soon enough, every woman agrees to go to Iran for the mission. There is a rousing score to drill in that point, and there is a wide and joyous smile on their faces. Now, there is no point arguing the veracity of it when the filmmaker’s focus is on dialling up the melodrama to make it an efficient empowerment message. As long as the film stays in this empowerment territory, The Vaccine War is a compelling endeavour that might feel like a slightly more serious version of Mission Mangal. However, Vivek Agnihotri’s films aren’t really known for their subtlety, are they?
Director: Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri
Cast: Nana Patekar, Pallavi Joshi, Sapthami Gowda, Girija Oak
The film begins just around the time the WHO reveals the 40-odd cases of people from Wuhan suffering from ‘something like pneumonia.’ We meet Dr Balaram Bhargava (Nana Patekar), the Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a no-nonsense scientist with a proclivity to cutting the call right after delivering his message without listening to what the other person has to say. He is not an easy person to work with, and we see multiple instances where we understand most of his subordinates grudgingly understand his machinations. India hasn’t yet seen its patient zero, but the team of scientists from ICMR and NIV start preparing by understanding the gravity of the situation. From here, we see how a group of underdog scientists came together and sacrificed a lot to ensure Covaxin became India’s first indigenous vaccine. We see the women scientists double up as homemakers, and losing their sleep and peace to find As long as The Vaccine War talks about science and sacrifice, the film treads on firm footing even while it intermittently cranks up the propaganda machinery with garden-variety history erasure. There is a random takedown of rocket science just to elevate virology, which is completely uncalled for. Similarly, when a scientist says the ruling government’s backing of the vaccine is the first time they feel valued as a person of science, it completely forgets that we have had a scientist being the first citizen of our country.
At every step of the way, The Vaccine War is anchored by the strong performances of its principal cast. Nana Patekar grounds the film with his measured acting style, and his face-offs with Pallavi Joshi make for fun detours from the serious docu-drama vibes that the film goes for. It is understandable that scientists get riled up against the narrative in sections of the media. The makers also get it right in showing the excitement among the scientists for finding out the strain of the virus. It is a poignant moment that is well explored. However, the inability to rein in the diatribe robs us of what could have been a more triumphant exploration of the scientific achievement of the country. The focus is on just a handful of people, and the film and the audience would have benefitted from knowing the stories behind the many people who gave it their all braving the possibility of death. Take, for instance, the scene in the hospital where Dr Bhargav is admitted, and talks to the doctors about hope and resilience. “It is tough to see the hope in doctors’ eyes die out,” says Dr Bhargav before expediting the process. That is what would have made the film even more rounded than what it ends up becoming.
But The Vaccine War isn’t just about how the vaccine was made bypassing the redtapism and bureaucracy. It is also about exposing the media trials against the efficacy of the vaccine. The makers use Raima Sen’s Rohini Dhulia as the singular embodiment of this ‘negative campaign’ and insinuate foreign conspiracies to rattle India’s scientific advancement. In these portions, however, the writing and filmmaking prove to be the film’s undoing as it resorts to incendiary lines and age-old reaction shots to drive home the point. In fact, Vivek and his team try their best to stay true to the science that it is actually impressive to see how that story unfolded while the nation was in serious peril. When we see how frontline workers lost hope, and yet kept soldiering on, the film expertly manages to evoke a sense of time because things might seem all rosy now, but the pandemic isn’t a relic of the past. It happened more recently than we give it credit for. It is almost like we collectively decided to move past it, and not think about those 2-3 years as a time that made everyone of us worry about the idea of tomorrow.
Seeing those scientists isolating the coronavirus, deciding on the best method to manufacture the vaccine, trying to catch elusive monkeys for research purposes, and losing their own sense of home and health is a moving documentation. Also, the film doesn’t shy away from questioning the government, but it is a mere footnote. In one of the scenes in the film, which constantly alleges that the virus was a lab leak from China, a scientist says that voices are being stifled, and it is almost impossible to question these forces. In many ways, apart from the ‘hitjob by the media,’ a lot of these questions were there in the minds of the common people too. It is not wrong to ask skeptics to turn into believers, but having a proper scientific temper and answering questions is the first step. It is interesting how all the allegations levied against them throughout the film were convincingly answered by the final act through a well-staged press meet. In fact, the Vaccine War reiterates the importance of answering questions to assuage the fears of the many. Basically, yes… science should alone triumph, but the basic tenet of science is to allow questioning. Always.
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