Cast: Nelofer Pazira, Hassan Tantaļ, Sadou Teymouri
Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Screenplay: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Cinematography: Ebraham Ghafouri
Music: Mohamad Reza Darvishi
U.S. Distributor: Avatar Films
In Farsi with subtitles
When Kandahar had the first of its two screenings at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, most of the Western world knew very little about the Taliban. And even fewer individuals were aware of the plight of the Afghan people, whose oppression under the Taliban was ignored by the mass media, which had chosen instead to focus on Rwanda and Bosnia. One week later, at the time of Kandahar's second Toronto screening, everything had changed. Suddenly, this movie, made in part to bring the situation in Afghanistan to the world's notice, was receiving far more attention than its director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, could ever have imagined possible.
Is the United States' military solution to the Afghanistan problem the correct one? That's a debate for the political arena (the answer to which will probably not be known for years - or even decades), but Kandahar makes it plain that something has to be done to address the current situation in a nation that the Taliban's iron fist has thrown back into the dark ages. The degree to which women have been devalued in this culture is shocking. They are viewed as less-than-human, little more than receptacles for sexual intercourse and breeding machines. By law, they cannot be educated, nor can they hold a job, nor can their faces be seen by any man other than their husband. Afghan women have fewer rights than dogs and cats in this country.
Kandahar tells a story, but the narrative is just a skeleton that writer/director Makhmalbaf can use to expose the social system of Afghanistan under the Taliban. It would be easy for those viewing this film to mistake it for a grim fantasy or something set in a long-forgotten land. It's difficult to believe that any modern country could be this backward and unenlightened. During the course of the movie, one character remarks that "weapons are the only modern thing in Afghanistan." Despite its fictional nature, Kandahar has documentary sensibilities. Almost every event recounted in this movie is based on a real occurrence, and Makhmalbaf vividly captures the essence of the country and its oppressed people. Kandahar ultimately works far better as an educational tool than as a traditional narrative-bound motion picture.
Nafas (Nelofer Pazira) is a female journalist who is returning to her birthplace of Afghanistan for the first time in over a decade. When she fled the country for Canada, she was forced to leave behind a sister who had been maimed by a landmine. Now, that sister, despondent as a result of the Taliban's oppression, has decided to kill herself during the final solar eclipse of the second millennium. When Nafas learns of this, she decides to travel to Kandahar to prevent the suicide. But getting to the city, especially with time working against her, is not an easy task. Disguised under an all-concealing burka (the head-to-toe garment worn by fundamentalist Muslim women), she is accompanied by various others on this trek, including an American living in Afghanistan (Hassan Tantaļ), a child seeking to make money, and a one-armed man trying to sell an artificial leg. She is Dorothy traveling a demented yellow brick road, but her destination is not Oz.
Nafas' story is based on the real-life situation of the lead actress, Nelofer Pazira. Many of the episodes within Afghanistan, including the exchanges at the Red Cross tent where artificial legs are handed out, the way in which doctors examine female patients (through a sheet with a hole in it, so faces cannot be seen), and the wedding procession, are drawn from things Makhmalbaf encountered during a clandestine trip into Afghanistan while preparing for the film. No professional actors are used, and filming was done near the Iran/Afghanistan border, less than a mile outside of Taliban-controlled territory.
In addition to addressing the plight of women in Afghanistan - a situation that has recently been widely publicized in the press (especially after Laura Bush took up the mantle) - Kandahar explores three other facets of everyday life: tribal hatred, vast poverty and hunger, and the omnipresent danger of landmines. Almost every death in Afghanistan is the result of one of these causes. There is such enmity and strife between the tribes that it seems virtually impossible that there could ever be a "united Afghanistan". The terrain is riddled with mines - millions of people have lost lives and limbs by stepping on one of them. Guides who know the region are needed to safely make the journey from city to city. And hunger is everywhere - the death toll from starvation is shockingly high.
An Iranian director of some note, Makhmalbaf was born in 1957 and has been making movies for more than fifteen years. Internationally, he is perhaps best known for Gabbeh and The Apple. In an interview found in the press kit for Kandahar, Makhmalbaf indicates that his experiences within Afghanistan have forever changed him as a person and a craftsman. He has become deeply passionate about the need to reform Afghanistan through political means and to bring enlightenment through education. After seeing 20,000 people dying of hunger, he no longer feels he can merely observe.
Kandahar's story - that of Nafas' episodic journey - will likely be quickly forgotten. As a character, she is not well-developed and her situation, while tragic, pales in comparison with what will linger: the portrait of Afghanistan that Makhmalbaf paints on this cinematic canvas. If not for the events of September 11, Kandahar would likely open and close with little fanfare, seen only by those stalwarts who make it their business to attend every art house film that opens in New York City. Now, it will receive a much longer look, and, by the time its theatrical run is completed, it will stand as a monument to an Afghanistan that was. For better or for worse, the reign of the Taliban appears to be over. But, as Kandahar indicates, the end of the current government does not signal an end to Afghanistan's problems.
© 2001 James Berardinelli