Ms Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on creating Partition scene: ‘Each one of us felt the pain…’
Oscar-winning Pakistani director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who has helmed Ms Marvel‘s fourth and fifth episodes, says she had a surreal time filming the Partition sequence for the Marvel Cinematic Universe series.
Sharmeen, who is known for documentaries such as Saving Face, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, said that the entire crew felt like they’d been transported back to 1947 while working on that scene from the show.
The filmmaker told Hindustan Times, “When we were standing on the platform there were close to a thousand extras on set in the scene where we’d gone back into 1947. When Kamala was walking on the platform, listening to these snatches of conversations, there was a moment when all of us on set couldn’t believe that we were able to recreate Partition and tell this story to this generation. For that time we were filming her walking through that platform, we really were transported into 1947. Each one of us felt the pain of what those families were going through and it felt like we were bearing witness to history.”
So far, Ms Marvel has received a mixed response from the audience, but it has seemingly wowed the critics as per review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus reads, “Ms. Marvel is a genuinely fresh addition to the MCU — both stylistically and substantively — with Iman Vellani ably powering proceedings with her super-sized charisma.”
Ms Marvel is the seventh MCU series, after WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, What If…?, Hawkeye and Moon Knight. The series stars Pakistani-Canadian actor Iman Vellani in the titular role, with special appearances by the likes of Farhan Akhtar and Fawad Khan.
Ms Marvel is currently streaming on Disney Plus Hotstar.
