Word: mohsen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...KANDAHAR Before Sept. 11, few knew of Kandahar; few cared about the ravages of civil war and Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Now the world sees the news value in Mohsen Makhmalbaf's tale of a woman crossing the desert incognito to find her sister. Even without the headlines, this Iranian film boasts a visual and emotional magnificence. It has a painter's acute eye for beauty within horror: the gorgeous colors of the burkas that imprison Afghan women; the handsome face of a child in a Taliban school as he expertly assembles a Kalashnikov rifle; the vision of one-legged...
...Kandahar Before Sept. 11, few knew of Kandahar; few cared about the ravages of civil war and Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Now the world sees the news value in Mohsen Makhmalbaf's tale of a woman crossing the desert incognito to find her sister. Even without the headlines, this Iranian film boasts a visual and emotional magnificence. It has a painter's acute eye for beauty within horror: the gorgeous colors of the burkas that imprison Afghan women; the handsome face of a child in a Taliban school as he expertly assembles a Kalashnikov rifle; the vision of one-legged...
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...
TIME: How did it feel to go from journalist to movie star? PAZIRA: When [Kandahar director] Mohsen Makhmalbaf phoned me, I thought, "I?m not an actress. I hope he knows what he?s doing because I?ve never been trained and we have no time to practice." But then I thought, "I?m just going to be the same journalist. I?ll be using the film to share information." It just happens to be my personal story this time. It became an opportunity to talk about a subject that is very close to me, one that I feel...