Kandahar

Starring:Nelofer Pazira, Hassan Tantai, Sadou Teymouri, Hoyatala Hakimi, Mollazaher Teymouri, Monica Hankievich, Zahra Shafahi, Safdar Shodjai, Noam Morgensztern
Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Studio: New Yorker Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

The prolific Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Gabbeh) had one of his most visible international successes with this haunting, open-ended drama. Set (and shot) during the Taliban era, it follows an Afghani-Canadian woman as she attempts to enter Afghanistan in search of a despondent sister. Since it is illegal for a woman to travel alone, she must rely on the kindness--or curiosity--of strangers, including a scrappy boy and a mysterious American doctor. The woman playing the lead role had earlier contacted Makhmalbaf about a similar real-life search, which prompted him to write the screenplay. The director doesn't really tell her story so much as he unveils a way of life: in the desert, we meet land-mine victims, Red Cross volunteers caught in a Catch-22 world, and women smothered in head-to-foot burkas. The portrait is one of oppression, but also of people furiously trying to get by. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews:

ill-conceived and overhyped.......2007-07-05

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.......2007-05-23

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.......2007-04-10

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.......2006-07-04

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.)

Life on the margins . . ........2006-04-21

A woman sets out to rescue her sister in the Afghan city of Kandahar and along the way meets the displaced persons of war, the refugees, the starving, and the walking wounded. The film focuses in particular on the women and children forced to survive under hostile conditions. Their marginal existence in the desert sands on the border of Iran and Afghanistan reflects their status within the Taliban-ruled country from which they live in exile. Even more dramatically, the film explores the plight of those who have lost limbs from land mines.

Particularly informative is the commentary by actress Nelofer Pazira that is included on the DVD. Her comments reveal in eloquent detail not only the making of the movie (shot where it takes place) but the rationale behind the creative choices made, often on the fly, as the film crew worked under difficult and dangerous conditions. While western news coverage continues to focus on the military and political aspects of warfare in the Middle East, "Kandahar" does much to reveal the devastating impact on noncombatants. Definitely worth seeing.

Charlie Rose with David Martin; Mike Lupica; George Butler & Caroline Alexander (December 7, 2001)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with David Martin; Mike Lupica; George Butler & Caroline Alexander (December 7, 2001)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Educational | Genres | DVD | Video

Description

Charlie Rose talks with the Pentagon correspondent for CBS News, David Martin, about the War in Iraq, and gets an update on the Taliban's surrender at Kandahar. Also, sports columnist for the New York Daily News and author Mike Lupica, discusses his newest novel Full Court Press. Lastly, author of the book, The Endurance Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, Caroline Alexander and filmmaker, George Butler, discuss how they teamed together to produce the film The Endurance.

Charlie Rose with Ahmed Rashid; Fawaz Gerges & Shafeeq Ghabra; Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (November 16, 2001)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with Ahmed Rashid; Fawaz Gerges & Shafeeq Ghabra; Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (November 16, 2001)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Educational | Genres | DVD | Video

Description

Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban, provides an update on the dramatic military developments in Afghanistan, Mullah Omar's the supreme leader of the Taliban, decision to withdraw his forces from Kandahar. Next, a look at Islam and democracy with Fawaz Gerges, Professor of History at Sarah Lawrence College, and Shafeeq Ghabra, Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University. Finally, a discussion with Simeon Saxe-Coburg, the prime minister of Bulgaria.

Average customer rating:

ALL ROADS LEAD TO...

Kandahar
Starring: Kandahar
Manufacturer: Phantom
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( K ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Album Description

Asia exclusive release directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf named Best Movie of 2001, Time Magazine. Nafas, an Afhan refugee in Canada, receives a letter from her sister in Afghanistan informing her that she intends to commit suicide on the approaching eclipse of the sun. In a desperate bid to save her, Nafas decides to travel back to the city of Kandahar. Code 3 / NTSC. Original English & Afghan dialogue/ optional English & Chinese subtitles.

Customer Reviews:

ALL ROADS LEAD TO..........2006-12-28

This is an intriguing film by renowned Iranian director Mosen Makhmalbaf. It is a brief, fascinating peek at Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. Filmed before the September 11, 2001 attack on the World trade Center took place, it offers a tantalizing glimpse into a country in which few of us can imagine living.

The premise of the film revolves around an Afghani woman named Nafas (Niloufar Pazira), who has emigrated to Canada but finds herself returning years later to her homeland after her sister, who had remained behind in Afghanistan, writes her a letter announcing her intention to end her life at the time of the next solar eclipse.

In the film, Nafas is journeying to her sister in Kandahar. She finds her country, a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic communities, totally devastated by two decades of war. It is through her eyes that the viewer sees the extreme views that have overrun her country. It is through her eyes that the viewer sees the tragedy that is Afghanistan.

The viewer sees that education is firmly in the hands of the Mullahs, the local religious leaders who practice and instruct young boys in a strict fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. It is an ideology that is interwoven with a chilling militancy. Despite the extreme views propounded by the Mullahs, mothers struggle to get their boys in these schools, so as to be assured that their sons will get your basic three hots and a cot in this land of famine.

Moreover, the issue of the role of women under such a repressive regime is also looked at. The viewer sees how the women are treated, denied an education, and referred to in collective, pejorative terms (black heads), due to the burkhas they are forced to wear, at all times. The viewer also sees the devastation that war has brought to this country in terms of land mines and consequent maimings. The results of famine and poor health care are also apparent throughout the course of this film.

As a story, the film promises but, ultimately, fails to deliver a very satisfactory ending. Metaphorically, however, it delivers. Just as her sister's end is near, the end of Afghanistan under this repressive Taliban regime is also near. The film is positively prophetic, when viewed in a metaphoric light.

Though the story line is left to drift as a backdrop for the bigger picture story alluded to through the stunning cinematography, the film still manages to succeed. The film, shot entirely in natural light due to the lack of electricity on location, is vivid with its imagery of a culture and lifestyle so alien to those of us living with and surrounded by creature comforts.

The beautiful Niloufar Pazira, who is not a professional actress but, rather, an Afghani born journalist living in Canada, is wonderful as Nafas. The cast of unknown locals contribute to the vitality of this film, which is a must see for those who are interested in other cultures or in the human condition. Filmed on the Iran-Afghanistan border, the film is based in part on a similar journey to Kabul that Niloufar Pazira had herself earlier attempted in response to a letter from a despondent childhood friend. That journey was never completed due to the danger inherent in such a trip.

The DVD offers superlative visuals and a crystal clear audio but has only a few limited bonus options or special features. It contains an interesting featurette entitled, "Lifting the Veil", which is a documentary that centers around Ms. Pazira. It tells the viewer about her extraordinary life and how it came about that this film was made.

There is also a film commentary by Ms. Pazira. What is interesting about the commentary is that it is not from a director's perspective. The commentary is from a very personal perspective and details what is meant to be conveyed by this film. Those who listen to the commentary will know that the film is about much more than its basic story line about Nafas finding her sister. The film is about Afghanistan.

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