'Zero Dark Thirty' & Pakistan: Film Upsets Locals Who Dispute Its Plot

[marmar]

from HuffPost:



ISLAMABAD — Pakistan stars in "Zero Dark Thirty," from early scenes at a detention site to the dramatic closing minutes as Navy SEALs assault the hideout of Osama bin Laden. But the Academy Award-nominated film about the hunt for the al-Qaida leader has sparked a controversy here about its portrayal of the country, and it will likely not be shown on the local big screen anytime soon.

Partly, the film taps into national discomfort that bin Laden was found to be living for years near Pakistan's equivalent of West Point, and anger over the U.S. decision to enter its airspace and raid the compound without giving advance notice. Doubts about whether bin Laden was really hiding out for years in the city of Abbottabad are also common across Pakistan, a country where conspiracy theories often have more weight than fact.

But Pakistanis who have seen the film on DVD or Internet downloads are also making much of what they say are factual errors.

Nadeem F. Paracha, a columnist for the English language newspaper Dawn and a cultural critic in Pakistan, noted that in some scenes characters speak Arabic, whereas Pakistanis in fact speak Urdu or Pashto or one of the tens of other languages found here. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/zero-dark-thirty-pakistan-upset-angry-audience_n_2724011.html

[msanthrope]

1. Nipicking won't change the fact that Osama Bin Laden was sheltered by the Pakistani gov't. nt

[joeybee12]

2. +1...exactly