Expressions of Bhopal: Snapshots of tragedy

A scene from "Bhopal Express" depicts a city in panic on the night of the gas leak, top, and actual footage from the 1984 Bhopal tradegy shows a dead child, below

May 17, 2000
Web posted at: 11:23 a.m. HKT (0323 GMT)

HONG KONG (CNN) -- As a train hurtles through the Indian landscape, its driver spots a distant figure on the tracks ahead. It's a man, frantic, running toward the fast-approaching train. He waves a shirt above his head, gesticulates wildly with his arms and stumbles as he hurls rocks. The man seems oblivious to the horrified driver's motions to get off the tracks before he is skittled.

The scene, from the newly-released film "Bhopal Express", depicts a frenzied man on a mission to stop a train before it enters the Indian city of Bhopal where a poisonous gas leak threatens the lives of the towns people.

Directed by Mahesh Mathai, "Bhopal Express" is based on one of the world's worst industrial accidents. In December 1984 thousands died when a pesticide factory of Union Carbide spewed over 40 tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas over Bhopal, central India. Deaths continue today among those who were exposed to the gas fifteen years ago. Many who survived now suffer from respiratory, reproductive, neurological and psychological problems.

It was during a visit to Bhopal that Indian-born Mathai was inspired to make the real-life incident into a film.

"I actually visited Bhopal to find out more," he said. "And that's really what changed my whole idea on Bhopal. It became more than just an idea. It became a story that I had to go out and tell because people were in an awful condition. People were dying there still, as they are now ten or fifteen every month. It became partly a mission besides just a film."

"Bhopal Express" explores how the actions of a big company can take a huge toll on common people. The story unfolds through the eyes of a newly married couple and their friend.

Filming took place in the south-Indian city of Hyderabad and in the U.S. Mathai decided not to film in Bhopal itself out of respect for the people who lived through the events of the gas leak.

"It would've been very insensitive of me as a filmmaker, a crew going in there and creating fake smoke and gas and panic and running and all of that," he told CNN. "It would have been traumatic for a lot of people who actually went through it."

Mathai comments on his visit to Bhopal ( 394 K/36 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

Also, Mathai said he avoided Bhopal during filming because on-going tension between living victims, the government and Union Carbide may have jeopardized the completion of his film.

"We shot this pretty much on the quiet. We didn't really advertise the fact that we were making this film," Mathai said.

After a screening of the completed film in New York, Mathai said he organized a panel of experts to come together to discuss issues relating to the Bhopal incident. Out of fairness, he said he invited representatives of Union Carbide to attend.

"They of course declined," Mathai said. "But I believe if they had been there they could have had their point of view."

"Bhopal Express", which was accepted into the Berlin International Film Festival this year, is Mathai's first film. The director said he felt feature, as opposed to documentary or recreation, was the best style to tell the Bhopal story.

"When you make a feature there's got to be a drama of people in it," he said. "So we look for incidents and little stories that are told and retold and things that happened fifteen years ago. We strung them all together and built a story of friendship and love."