Product Description

Commentary by actress nelofer pazira this epic tale of hope & courage as an afghan born journalist returns to her homeland in a desperate attempt to reach her sister. Studio: New Yorker Films Video Release Date: 05/13/2003 Run time: 85 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33415 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-05-13
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Persian
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

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

From The New Yorker
The latest film by the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf couldn't be better timed. The story is just a series of gestures: Nafas (Nelofer Pazira), an Afghan woman who left her country as a teen-ager, returns to look for her suicidal sister. On the way to Kandahar (conceived as a state of mind as much as a place), Nafas runs into a variety of helpers disguising themselves to avoid persecution by the Taliban-men in burkas, a boy faking an inability to read the Koran, a benevolent African-American wearing a false beard. The sequences don't have much continuity, but Makhmalbaf turns the desolation of the country into scenes of iconic power. The repeated motif: flimsy new plastic and wooden legs made for the many who have lost their limbs to land mines. In Farsi and English. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

A journey in the land of Taliban horror and oppression
This Iranian film was made before the horrible events of 9/11 etched the name of Kandahar into our consciousness. This film is NOT a documentary. It is a fictionalized story of an Afghan woman, Nafas, a Canadian journalist, who returns to Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban to search for her sister.

Filmed in Iran, it nevertheless gives us a feel for the bleak sun-dried landscape of Afghanistan. Here, the woman wear burkas, they are not allowed to go to school, and they must constantly look out for land mines. During the course of the film Nafas has disguises herself as a fourth wife of a man returning to Afghanistan from Iran, is helped by a young boy who has to eke out a living the best way he can after being thrown out of a religious school, sickens and meets a doctor who speaks English and joins a one-armed man and a group of women on their way to a wedding in Kandahar.

There is horror and oppression everywhere, not just for the women, but also for everyone under Taliban rule. Saddest of all are the victims of the land mines. There are several scenes in a Red Cross station about this, with the dozens of one-legged men who are in constant pain and who wait for the helicopters to drop prosthetic legs from the sky.

Nelofer Pazura, a real-life Canadian journalist who was born in Kabul and therefore speaks both Parsi and English, plays the part of Nafas. She is beautiful with wide sad blue eyes and she plays this role as if in a dream, her face expressionless whenever she lifts her burka. The film is upsetting and not for everyone and some of the images will haunt me for a long time. I do recommend it. But don't expect to leave the theater smiling.

A beautiful semi-documentary that teaches without words
I can't vouch the following is how Kandahar's author, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, would describe his film. I can't even say whether, living in Iran, Makhmalbaf feels free to say what he means, otherwise than through film. However, he has put up a long background document on Afghanistan at http://www.makhmalbaf.com/articles.asp?pa=1&a=a16

What I saw is a semi-documentary set in a desertic area of Afghanistan, built of long sequences each of which is very telling, admirably constructed and visually beautiful. In fact, the film has been criticized for its beauty. The topic about which the images are so telling, is what Afghan society (which is essentially rural) has been reduced to by twenty years of war, and especially the state of the female half of that society.

The sequences are linked together by the fictional component. A 21-year old Afghan refugee from Ottawa, Canada, working as a journalist, wants to reach her sister in Kandahar before she commits suicide on the eclipse. The sister told her about her plan in a letter sent three months before, but events have left our protagonist on the Iranian border three days before the eclipse. The sequences occur as she progresses towards Kandahar. The sister has never left Afghanistan because on the way out with the rest of the family, 15 years before, she stepped on a mine and lost her legs. Her father remained with her, but he is now dead.

The Canadian sister will never reach Kandahar. As the film ends, she has been caught by the Taliban, to no one's surprise. I surmise she will either be taken up as booty by a commander, for a Xth wife or concubine, or will be raped by soldiers, as booty again, and left to fend as a prostitute until caught again and executed. She may well live no longer than her sister.

In my reading the protagonist's naive self-centeredness is meant to set off the non-fictional images. There is a visual leitmotif translating this egocentrism. On all occasions, the girl keeps dictating her precious thoughts and "candles of hope" for her sister into a small tape recorder -- in English, which of course her sister can't understand: she's dictating to her own sensitive self. Her attachment to the machine is the reason she gets caught.

A second English-speaking character is provided, who is as full of modesty and truth as she is blind and vapid. This is an American black Muslim who came to Afghanistan over fifteen years before looking for God by fighting the Russians, and has now learned to simply look for opportunities to do good.

There is an unfinished dialog on the topic of hope, and, reading between the lines, my perception is that the endless war has cleansed Afghan society of any occasion for hope, especially for women, and that this cleansing is simply expressed through the Taliban. Hence the importance of doing good because it is good, and not because it is a "candle of hope".

Whether or not I am right in any of this, I am sure Kandahar will tell you much also, of things that cannot be written but can be shown.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO...
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.