Word: makhmalbaf
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This much of Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf's lovely and terrifying movie Kandahar is true. Indeed, Pazira, 28, plays Nafas, the character she inspired--though in the film it is a sister, not a friend, she seeks to save--and the year is 1999, just before the millennium new year. In real life, Pazira only briefly penetrated Afghanistan's border. In the film, her character, shrouded in a burka and taking notes on a hidden tape recorder, is a brave, lonely figure constantly menaced by a bleak land and the day-to-day anarchy of the life she finds there...
...surely Pazira would never have had the chance to tell a tale like Kandahar. Directed by Iran?s Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film is the story of a Canadian journalist and Afghan exile, played by Pazira, who attempts to return to her homeland to help her sister, who is depressed and suicidal, a result of the oppression and fighting that, for most Afghans, have long been part of daily life. "The idea was not to have a film to discuss the political climate yet again," says Pazira, 27. "This was a humanitarian look, to see the pain...
...Afghani children in Kandahar, by Kiarostami's compatriot Mohsen Makhmalbaf, do not smile. One comely lad in a Taliban school loads a Kalashnikov rifle and obediently proclaims its virtues - it "kills the living and mutilates the dead" - as a mullah praises his recitation. ("Weapons," a visiting doctor says later, "are the only modern thing in Afghanistan.") Another boy, an orphan in the desert, will peddle anything, including himself, to keep going. He attaches himself to an educated Iranian woman who has returned from Canada to save her sister...
...Makhmalbaf showed in Gabbeh, he is Iran's great colorist; here the grand vistas, the gorgeous hues of the women's burkas (which hide all but their eyes), offer poignant counterpoint to the Taliban's ravaging of a beautiful land. We know of their desecration of ancient Buddhas; now we see how they ravage their people. One way is through land mines that pock the desert; some are concealed in dolls that lure children to pick them up and lose a hand. At a Red Cross outpost, artificial legs rain from the sky in parachutes dropped from a plane...
...Kandahar is full to bursting with such images of desperate hope amid official atrocity. The incidents the film depicts make one ashamed to be human, even as its artistry makes one grateful for a world-class showcase like Cannes and for directors with Makhmalbaf's craft and daring. If you can't find Kandahar in your town, ask your local distributor. Don't be too proud...