One can trust documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney to gauge the most significant resource at his disposal, as he sets out to make a film on the assassination attempt on Salman Rushdie: his subject’s lyrical mastery over the English language. “We would not be here without the calamities of our yesterdays,” Rushdie says matter-of-factly in the voice-over of the film, which deals with the aftermath of the events of August 12, 2022. On this day, the renowned author was at a public lecture in Chautauqua, New York, when there was an attempt on his life by a member of the audience – later identified as New Jersey resident, Hadi Matar. The threat had loomed over Rushdie’s life for decades, after a bounty was announced by Ayatollah Khomeini – Iran’s Supreme leader – in 1989. Thirty-three years later, someone had come closest to carrying it out.But the idea of the documentary wasn’t Gibney’s – it was Rushdie’s. As he lay in a hospital bed, days after the dastardly attack, which damaged his right eye, severed tendons in his left wrist, slashed open the right side of the neck which had to be stapled together – the bestselling author told his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, to ‘document’ his survival. “It’s not about me,” Rushdie tells Griffiths, “it’s about freedom.” In a moment, when his physical state was at its most vulnerable, Rushdie’s intent to archive his defiance could be seen as an act of bravery. The writer, deemed ‘controversial’, has been at the eye of a tornado about artistic freedom – after Muslim leaders from around the world (esp. Khomeini) denounced The Satanic Verses, for its ‘blasphemous’ portions.It’s a story that the world has heard over and over, but Gibney injects a freshness into the telling. Rushdie himself becomes the narrator, showcasing his straight-faced humour through the most dour circumstances. A cinephile in his own right, the author mentions how he saw flashes of the scene from The Seventh Seal – the chess match between a man and death – in the days after the attack. Also, the scene from Bunuel’s An Andalusian Dog, where a woman’s eye is slit with a razor – the surrealist scene being adapted to Rushdie’s real life. Gibney leads by recreating the events from Rushdie’s point-of-view on the day of – emphasising on the severity of the attack. Griffiths bravely keeps the camera pointed at Rushdie’s maimed right-eye, as the writer tries to lighten the situation with his wry humour – it’s the ultimate language of defiance against his critics. The only time one senses a bit of hurt in his voice is when he recounts how his country of birth, India, took a few weeks to condemn the attack – long after most other nations had done it.Also read: India ‘Found No Words’ on His Attempted Murder, Salman Rushdie Writes in ‘Knife’The film cuts to archival footage of a young Rushdie, just as eloquent, growing up in a moderate Muslim family. A father who had violent tendencies after drinking, Rushdie speaks about his escape to London as the only way he could pursue his dream of becoming a writer. The proceedings soar frenetically around the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 – leading to the worldwide furore among Muslims, after originating in Iran. We see clips of Rushdie clarifying the deliberate misreading of his book, which he calls ‘provocative’ – and nowhere close to being blasphemous. He criticises the narrow-mindedness of dogmatic religious folk, most of whom were protesting without having read the book. It’s a situation that has been replicated more frequently in recent years, where totalitarian regimes identify an ‘enemy’ for the mob to go after.Rushdie has been a fascinating character over the years, denounced by Muslims after 1988; he’s also known for his dense language, making him less accessible compared to other popular writers of his era. Like many mavericks – Rushdie has been both an insider, and an outcast. Unfortunately, Gibney doesn’t dwell on this dichotomy beyond the superficial. I was also slightly troubled by the film’s characterisation of the assailant, whom Rushdie simply refers to as ‘The A’, as ‘ignorant’. While the gist of the characterisation might be largely consistent with Hadi Matar being a young man under the influence – I wondered if the film might have benefitted from exploring the forms of radicalisation, like caricatures of Rushdie sporting devilish horns, or a hilarious bit from a kitschy Pakistani film – depicting a criminal mastermind called Salman Rushdie, whose life’s mission is to destroy Islam. However, since Gibney’s film is completely taking place from Rushdie’s point-of-view, limits him from introducing a point-of-view of his own. Knife is at its strongest, when it focuses on Rushdie’s resolve to never submit to his critics. It charts out instances of him resisting by appearing on red carpets, using opportunities to show up where cameras are – spearheading his own personal civil disobedience movement. He imagines having a conversation with his assailant – visualised through animation and Rushdie’s atypical voiceover. He knows how the conversation will pan out, risking sounding almost too self-assured, and borderline presumptuous.Gibney saves his sucker-punch for the last segment of the film, when Rushdie and Griffiths return to the site of the incident. It’s when Rushdie is describing the day in granular detail, does Gibney splice it with the CCTV footage, laying bare the barbarity of the act. And yet, Rushdie sums it up in his customary style – “this was the place where I fell down, and now I’ve gotten back on my feet again.” Gibney’s Knife may not be the definitive scholarly account of Rushdie’s life or the global machinery that sought to silence him, but it doesn’t pretend to be. Instead, it narrows its focus to a single act of survival – and the stubborn refusal to be cowed by fear. Occasionally too respectful of its subject, the film also argues that survival itself can be a form of resistance – and that may be its most lasting statement.Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie had its world premiere at the 2026 Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah.