Kandahar

Contains some remarkable and memorable shots and scenes, but is perhaps a little too forced in its attempt to persuade. Some of the writing is less than impressive.

hikâye dokunaklı ama senaryoda ve kimi sahnelerde fena hâlde 'zorlanmışlık', 'olmamışlık' hissi yaşatıyor; bu da filmin, -sanırım- hedeflediği doğallıktan uzaklaşmasına neden oluyor...

like the house is black this film is poetic beyond it's educational purposes

Based on a true story, emphasis on "based on". Makhmalbaf conjures some memorable images but the story definitely feels scripted. It's like he had a checklist of things he wanted the protagonist to experience (besides what the real-life journalist actually experienced) and was determined to cram them all in the film. Still, even if the episodes don't come together in a way that seems natural, at least most of them are individually interesting.

A caminho de Kandahar estreava há 20 anos no Festival de Valladolid na Espanha. Foi relevante em 2001, voltou a ser ainda mais relevante em 2021, sem ter um olhar colonizador paternalista ocidental na situação, mas a gente sabe que ser mulher no Afeganistão sob o domínio talibã é uma das piores coisas que poderia acontecer a qualquer mulher. DVDRip no MakingOff.

"Kandahar is Mohsen Makhmalbaf's wondrously absurd, always evocative (though sometimes heavy-handed ode) to the perpetually disguised Afghani woman." - Ed Gonzalez

Great up to a point. Feels disjointed: the protagonist onscreen also narrating in voice-over, the combination of blatant exoticism and a legend-like structure with gritty realism... but it works. You might call it a realist fantasy. Early on are arresting visuals, two or three awesome pieces of music and the effervescent characters of Khak and Tabib Sahid. Later, what starts out as a beautiful meditation on replacement legs ends up getting carried away, and the last twenty minutes are weaker.

Makhmalbaf's film gives a harrowing portrait of injustice run rampant. And yet, there remain slivers of hope--in a doctor's prescriptions, in the multi-colored burkhas of a wedding party, and in the faces of Afghan children. The landscape reflects this dual reality--at one moment a barren wasteland, at another a picturesque desert landscape. For all its benefits, I still feel the film is a bit too didactic for its own good.