Themes: Sibling Relationships, Journey of Self-Discovery, Nothing Goes Right
Main Cast: Niloufar Pazira, Hassan Tantai, Sadou Teymouri
Release Year: 2001
Country: FR/IR
Run Time: 85 minutes
Plot
Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf examines the troubling story of life in neighboring Afghanistan in this compelling drama. Nafas (Niloufar Pazira) is a reporter who was born in Afghanistan, but fled with her family to Canada as a child, escaping the violence of the country's political instability. However, her sister wasn't so lucky; she lost her legs to a land mine while young, and when Nafas and her family left the country, her sister was accidentally left behind. Nafas receives a letter from her sister announcing that she's decided to kill herself during the final eclipse before the dawn of the 21st century; desperate to spare her sister's life, Nafas makes haste to Afghanistan, where she joins a caravan of refugees who, for a variety of reasons, are returning to the war-torn nation. As Nafas searches for her sister, she soon gets a clear and disturbing portrait of the toll the Taliban regime has taken upon its people. Also featuring Hassan Tantai and Sadou Teymouri, Safar E Gandehar was shown in competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Completed just months before the United States' military involvement in Afghanistan, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Mahkmalbaf's neo-realist, political road movie took on added resonance once the Western world, for unarguably selfish reasons, took an interest in the lawless region. But even after the Taliban's treatment of women ceased to be a media issue du jour, Kandahar remains a potent, visceral, first-person look at life within the borders of an oppressive regime. All the more heartbreaking because the movie was based on her own experiences, Niloufar Pazira turns in a measured, inquiring performance; she's as much a spectator as the audience, and that quality goes a long way in smoothing over the film's rough spots. Indeed, Kandahar is understandably marked by some amateurish acting and a rough technical quality reminiscent of older European films (with their jagged cuts and off-sync dubbing). But Mahkmalbaf's sense of poetry -- evident in the film's imagistic prologue, its heartbreaking, bizarre prosthetic-leg air drop sequence, and its shattering final shot -- is strong enough to shine through any budgetary limitations. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Kandahar (originally titled Safar-e Ghandehar ("Journey to Kandahar") and, alternatively, The Sun Behind the Moon) is a 2001 film by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, set in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban. The film is based on a story (partly true, partly fictionalized) of a successful Afghan-Canadian (played by Nelofer Pazira) who returns to Afghanistan after receiving a letter from her sister, who was left behind when the family escaped, that she plans on committing suicide on the last solar eclipse of the millennium.
Kandahar was filmed mostly in Iran, but also secretly in Afghanistan itself[citation needed]. Most people, including Nelofer Pazira, played themselves. The film premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival,[1] but didn't get much attention at first. After 9/11, however, it was widely shown. Kandahar won Makhmalbaf the Federico Fellini Prize from UNESCO in 2001.
Hidden behind a burqa, Nafas, the sister from Canada, makes her way across the border with a family of refugees. When they are robbed by brigands and the family turns back, she decides to continue on her way, accompanied first by a young boy who was just expelled from a Qur'anic school, and then by an African American convert to Islam, who has become disillusioned with the turn the country has taken under the Taliban.
As the film proceeds, Nafas learns more and more about the hardships women face under the Taliban, and even more so, how years of war have destroyed Afghan society. Her African American guide, hidden behind a false beard, points out to her that the only technological progress allowed in the country is weaponry. As they wander the countryside, Nafas records her impressions into a portable tape recorder hidden beneath her veils. She sees children robbing corpses to survive, people fighting over artificial limbs that they might need in case they walk through a minefield, and doctors who examine female patients from behind a curtain with a hole in it.
When her African American guide turns back, because he is afraid to enter the city of Kandahar, she follows a guide who had just scammed a pair of artificial legs out of the Red Cross. Dressed in burqas, the pair join a wedding party which is stopped by the Taliban because they are playing musical instruments and singing--forbidden by Afghan law. Her guide is unveiled and taken away. Nafas is cleared by the Taliban patrol to continue, along with other members of the wedding party. In the end, Nafas is within sight of Kandahar at sunset.
