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.[...]

This beautiful film is a semi-fictional journey through a lawless section of Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The main character, Nafas, is an Afghan woman who has lived many years in the West, returns to rescue her sister. Everyday details of life are beautifully portrayed: the women in colorful burqas, applying make-up under their veils; Prosthetic legs being dropped from helicopters, drifting down on parachutes, to serve the many crippled by land mines.Afghan refugee families gather at the border to return to their homes in Afghanistan. The children in particular are prepared for the change, carefully taught not to touch any toys they may see along the way. These are usually IEDs. Also, they are told that the girls won't go to school anymore, but maybe things will change in the future.Nafas pays one of these families to take her to Kandahar; she poses as the fourth wife, and submits to the burqa for safety.She meets a fascinating variety of people along the way: a boy expelled from a Madrassa for not learning to recite, who gets money by robing corpses; a Black American who came to Afghanistan to fight the Russians, but now has settled down to be a country doctor in a land full of tragedy. Unable to grow a beard, he must wear a false beard to satisfy the Taliban.The elaborate procedure required for a [male] doctor to examine a female patient is truly cumbersome. And it is clearly understood by all Afghans that since the Taliban doesn't allow women to go out without a male relative, any male has a kind of duty to pose as husband, father, or brother to any woman who needs to go somewhere.

It reminded me of my time in Afghanistan

This film was a quietly disturbing take on one woman's experience while on a determined trek across the stark deserts of Afghanistan to come to the aid of her suffering sister in Kandahar. Nafas shows a melancholy courage in her quest; she is determined to find her sister and must subject herself to the dangers of bandits and checkpoints where women are body searched and otherwise humiliated. Along the way we are shown boys being trained to be mullahs; this scene is very effective in portraying the brainwashing techniques used on boys who must learn and recite prayers as well as hold up a Russian machine gun and explain it's purpose. When one boy is expelled for improper recital, he must do what he can to make money, thus he agrees to escort Nafas to Kandahar after she is abandoned by her first escorts. He is aggressive and desperate; the boy who played this part was one of the better actors in the movie. And so it goes on - Nafas is passed from escort to escort due to the dangers and suspicions of others.The actress portraying Nafas is beautiful; she need not have said a word to convey the pain and sorrow of her plight, because her eyes are so expressive. Her speaking parts in English sounded a bit stiff and I missed some of what she said because her voice was so low.All said, this is a haunting film which I've added to my repertoire of books and movies about Afghanistan. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to further his/her exploration of the devastating results of Taliban rule.

For a long time I had wanted to see this movie having seen clips from it in a talk about Iranian cinema. I always thought that the region 2 DVD's of this film too expensive to buy. However when I replaced an old DVD with a non-branded very cheap DVD I was able to play all regions on it so I bought this region 1 DVD for much less than I previously could.It's very worthwhile trying to see this film, which gives a greater understanding of what ordinary people of Afghanistan have to put up with day to day