KANDAHAR
This is more of a docudrama than a film with a plot and satisfying ending along with character development. Roger Ebert says it well: "KANDAHAR does not provide deeply drawn characters, memorable dialogue or an exciting climax. Its traffic is in images..." It is the images that stick. This was made before 9/11 to show the persecution of women in Afghanistan. It is partially based on a true story involving Nelofer Pazira (Nafas), an Afghan-born Canadian journalist. In the film she has received a letter from her sister who was left behind when the family evacuated Russian-controlled Afghanistan. Her sister, now living under the rule of the Taliban, no longer wants to go on living and has given a date, the lunar eclipse, when she will commit suicide. The letter was delayed in getting to Nafas and she has arrived at the Iranian-Afghan border with only three days until the eclipse. As a woman, she is not free to travel alone into Afghanistan. She must arrange for some male assistance. The rest of the film is about her journey to find her sister. Along the way she meets a Black American disguised as an Afghan medical doctor, a Red Cross camp helping land mine victims who have lost legs. The image of the doctor (he doesn't know she is from Canada initially) asking questions of Nafas thru a third party and being separated by a sheet with a hole to examine her ears, eyes and mouth would be humorous, if not true. A Red Cross helicopter makes a 'leg drop', parachuting artificial legs to the camp below and we are overwhelmed by the image of several dozen amputees with crutches literally racing each other to get a pair of legs. The image of a her young male guide (10-12 years old) pulling a ring off a skeleton in the desert and trying to sell it to her is wrenching. Once again, we are struck by the incredible cruelty that the human race is capable of inflicting on one another, simply because of race or gender. You will probably not remember the plot but you will remember the images, images the reinforce the knowledge that there is both good and evil in this world and we must counter evil wherever we find it. A sobering film.
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ill-conceived and overhyped
Kandahar is a film that I've been wanting to see for years. It became a "de rigueur" staple of the art-house cinema circuit following 9/11. I remember the long lines at the Museum of Fine Arts here in Houston, when the film was screened.

Obviously, this film has its fans, as evidenced by the glowing reviews on Amazon. I personally found it to be a sham. For starters, it is filmed documentary-style, but the plot is heavily scripted. I'm not saying this concept is flawed; it works in The Story of the Weeping Camel. But, in a film that deals with such serious topics as famine and land mines, it feels wholly out of place. Also, the English-language dialogue suffers from flat delivery. The protagonist seems phony; every potentially poignant moment is ruined by her deadpan method of speaking.

Visually, the film is stunning at times, especially when you see the wedding party march in the desert. The sea of burqas in contrasting colors (such as emerald, black, ochre yellow, peach, white, purple, etc.) is absolutely stunning. But the quality of the cinematography is not enough to rescue the flawed direction.

I imagine that the throngs of curious people who clamored to see the film left the cinema somewhat disappointed. I know I did, watching it on DVD.

Looking Behind the Veil
KANDAHAR, or THE SUN BEHIND THE MOON, is an interesting and provocative film. Though I felt that in some ways the movie was manipulative since it was narrated in English and not actually filmed in Afghanistan, I did learn much from it. However, it felt as though it was an "outsider's" view into the world of Afghan people told from the vantage point of someone who had escaped the Taliban's stronghold and resides in Canada now. Also, the director is from Iran. So, this, too, somehow takes away from the film's "true" perspective. To the film's credit, however, it delivers powerful images and a look at how sad and utterly devastated the landscape of a once-proud nation has become. It makes the more fortunate among us perhaps stop for a moment to treasure the small freedoms we take entirely for granted and realize that the people of Afghanistan deserve a chance for freedom too. It also leaves one with haunting questions: Will the Afghan people ever write love stories, romances, poems, songs after it seems that their world was entirely capsized and their hearts broken by the Taliban? Will women ever be able to live in anything but total fear there? What is going to happen to that country when the war is over and all the world's focus shifts away from them? For all its failures, the film does deliver us a postcard from a land most of us will never otherwise know and makes us feel the desire to understand and empathize with its people. Post-9/11, that is important and essential to the world's healing.

An Alright Drama
It was interesting and beautiful. The acting looked like acting...this is not the documentary it looks like. If some of the performances had not occasionally distracted me into rembering I was watching a movie, I'd have given it 5 stars.

Orientalism on demand
the movie directors in the ME, particularly Iranians, are responding to demands by the West for certain type of movies. They produce what is demanded from them; in turn, they receive awards. cultural industry empowers these demands; they are the ones who will ensure that such movies will be received the Western audiences and they are the ones who decide who is awarded. There is no single ME movie which depict the story of Western imperialism in the ME and then awarded for doing so. ME movies must show that ME women are in need of emancipation; ME cultures are presented as in need of getting civilized. civilization itself is presented in vertical sense; there is a civilization somewhere out there all MEasterners are expected to reach; yet, it was that same civilization that threw doll bombs on them. (no reference to who threw them doll bombs or who mined their country; who deprived them of education and knowledge. the West is represented by beautiful, blonde nurses, a nice American guy who just pretend to be a doctor and help them with his "everyday Western knowledge of medicine" in the midst of total ignorance, and the helicopters that threw on them fake legs. such a nice way to civilize!)
the story of Afghanistan is real. however, the movie does not render a fair job in reflecting the background of it. rather, it does an excellent job in meeting the cultural demand; in producing a product that can sell well.
the situation is miserable; but what caused such misery in Afghanistan? your answer after seeing the movie will be that it is Islam; it is that Islamic culture; that backward culture of those people with wonderful eyes. such a conclusion is strongly demanded in the absence of other factors. there is no single implying in the movie, a smallest reference, that Afghanistan has suffered centuries old imperialism at the hands of the British and then the Russian and now Americans who played their Great Game on the chessboard of Eurasia. There is a passage in the movie to the effect that somebody will come to liberate them. those imperialists came in the name of civilization; French did to Algeria, the British did to India; all in the name of bringing them civilization. It was White Man's Burden to do so. Yet Makhmalbaf needs more awards. he has to compete in the cultural circus and perform well for the pleasure of Western audiences, in order to continue to be in demand. you did a nice job, applauses; go on.
(anyone who is interested in cultural imperialism should read Foucault's works and Edward Said's Orientalism.)