EVERYDAY HEROES
HOTEL MUMBAI I The 2008 terror attacks on the Indian city are brought vividly to life…
In November 2008, Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist group based in Pakistan, coordinated 12 devastating attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai across four days. Among the targets was the five-star Taj Mahal Palace Hotel – which now forms the setting for Anthony Maras’ debut feature, Hotel Mumbai. “The Taj is the symbol of Mumbai – the first building in India to have electricity,” explains Australian-born Maras, who worked with screenwriter John Collee on crafting the script.
Maras also chose to focus on the fate of the Taj because of the way events unfolded. With the city’s security forces stretched so thinly, many of the hotel staff took it upon themselves to protect the guests as the building was stormed by terrorists. “While it’s an unflinching film, a confronting film in many ways, the fact is there were over 1,000 people in that hotel and [just] 31 died,” says Maras. “It was because of the actions of many ordinary people who didn’t go to work or check in that day to be heroes… they were just doing everyday things.”
Inspired by 2009’s Surviving Mumbai, Maras had access to the extensive, unedited interviews conducted for that documentary. But then he and Collee went to Mumbai and spent a month
in the hotel, speaking to staff. “Because the team from Surviving Mumbai had built such a strong rapport with the survivors, it allowed us to hit the ground running,” he says. “I think they appreciated how the documentary had come out and how things were portrayed.”
It certainly set the tone for Maras’ approach. He recalls the words of Basil Iwanyk, the film’s lead American producer, “He said, ‘This is India’s 9/11. They stopped their country. If we’re going to go for it, let’s go for it.’ It was Basil’s challenge to me to try to tell the full scope of the story, and explore it in a more macro sense.” This meant examining events from multiple viewpoints, notably the Taj staff – led by Dev Patel’s waiter Arjun – and the guests, including Jason Isaacs’ wealthy Russian and Armie Hammer’s brave husband.
While many of the characters were amalgams, based on various accounts, it nevertheless resonated with Patel. “He has his own connection to the story,” says Maras, who reveals his star was filming Slumdog Millionaire
– including at the Victoria Terminus train station, the site of one of the attacks – just a few months before it all happened. “He came back to England and saw his mother crying at the TV one day. She was pointing and he saw the attacks… I think that left a really big impression on him.” It’s a feeling everyone who sees Maras’ film will likely share.
ETA | 27 SEPTEMBER / HOTEL MUMBAI OPENS THIS AUTUMN.