Sand
Hassles
An expat journeys to
It would be easy, and tempting, to hail Kandahar
as a masterpiece without even seeing it: It's a foreign film, it takes on
social issues, it's directed by Iranian master Mohsen Makhmalbaf, it speaks to
the causes of our war on terror and first hit U.S. shores right as the city of
Kandahar fell to the Northern Alliance. When Time's Richard Corliss, who
presumably has seen the film, named it the best of 2001, he cited many of the aforementioned
factors, in addition to the film's visual beauty.
And
the film is astonishingly well-made, especially when you learn that the cast
consisted almost entirely of amateurs, the production was guerrilla-style and
Makhmalbaf had to constantly wear a disguise as a result of all the death
threats he was getting. Makhmalbaf's last film to play L.A. screens, A
Moment of Innocence, which showed the Henry Jagloms and Lars Von Trierses
of the world how a self-referential indie film should be done, was one of the
cinematic highlights of 2000, and this one doesn't disappoint on a qualitative
level. It's also very accessible to those unaccustomed to Iranian cinema, as
almost half the dialogue is in English and the story plays like a feminist's Apocalypse
Now: An expatriated Afghan journalist (Nelofer Pazira, who attempted a
similar journey in real life) must journey from Iran into Afghanistan, and the
heart of darkness that is Taliban-controlled Kandahar, to stop her despondent
sister from committing suicide.
Yet
there is one significant and frustrating detail about the film: Having
established the premise, the film ends before the journey does. It isn't
possible to spoil the ending, as there really isn't one; the quest simply
continues out of our sight. It's as if The Fellowship of the Ring were
titled Mordor and had no guaranteed sequels. Perhaps to one more
familiar with Iranian cinema, an ending might be implied, but proving that any
definite solution is implicit in the work is a challenge on a par with explaining
Mulholland Drive's ending. (Thus, many critics proclaim both films to be
brilliant, simply because it's easier to believe an art-house filmmaker has a
grand master plan than that he ran out of time or money.)
That
said, Kandahar is still a film worth your time, and if you know going
into it that there's no closure, it'll give you all the more freedom to enjoy
what is there. Thanks to recent news, we all know about the tyranny of
the burka, which masks women head-to-toe and causes them to resemble large
pepper pots. We also have some idea that, as one character puts it,
"weapons are the only modern thing in Afghanistan." Makhmalbaf made
the film before September 2001, so he was forced to cover some ground that has
since been well-trodden upon. It's in the details that the film really shines.
Among
the characters escorting our heroine are a young boy (Sadou Teymouri) kicked
out of religious school for, among other things, not giving the correct
word-for-word definition of a Kalashnikov rifle; an African-American
"doctor" (Hassan Tantaļ) hiding under a fake beard and working with
only the most basic medical knowledge of the average Westerner, thus making him
an expert by Afghan standards; and a one-handed hustler who scams prosthetic
legs from relief workers for resale. All are essentially playing themselves.
The most significant stretch required by an actor occurred when a local mullah
who disagreed with his government's use of military force agreed to play a
stricter, pro-Taliban mullah. Of the actors, only Pazira, Tantaļ and Teymouri
are even credited in any official capacity (and recent reports allege that
Tantaļ may in fact be a terrorist hiding behind an alias); the rest presumably
seek anonymity to protect themselves.
Then there are the images of children being told
not to pick up dolls, since they might be booby-trapped to explode; or the
scene in which a whole crowd of amputees on crutches set off as fast as they
can toward a series of slowly descending parachutes containing mechanical legs.
At that moment, you don't know whether to laugh, cry or wonder what drugs
someone must have slipped you. Then you realize it's simply a reenactment of a
weekly occurrence, and all you can do is praise the director for bringing such
absurd tragedy to the world's attention.