Kandahar
(Safar e Ghandehar) is an Iranian film, with
a lot of spoken English, which proceeds as if a documentary
because the conditions portrayed are real. Nafas (played by
Nelofer Pazira), an Afghani refugee who fled to Canada when
the Taliban came to power, receives word in 1999 that her
sister will commit suicide at the last solar eclipse of the
millennium due to unbearable conditions under the Taliban,
both as a woman and as a casualty of a landmine. (The story
is based on the plight of the lead actress in the film.) Nafas
tries to enter Afghanistan in order to prevent her sister
from killing herself, but she is turned back at the Pakistani
and Tajikistani borders, so she tries and succeeds in crossing
from Iran. The film follows a familiar on-the-road scenario,
with revelations about the now-defunct Taliban regime as the
trip progresses. (The aim of the film, to expose the barbarity
of the regime, was instead accomplished by the events of 9-11.)
Shortly after the film begins, she pays an Afghan man $100
to cross the border with his family; she is to be smuggled
under a burqa as his fourth wife. We learn that his wives
come from more than one ethnic group, despite ethnic enmity
otherwise portrayed in the film, but we can only surmise that
he is returning to his homeland because he has been expelled
by the Iranian government because he worked in the country
illegally, as the film Baran (2001) suggests. Before
crossing the border in a three-wheel vehicle, UN officials
caution the family about landmines (Taliban dolls contain
bombs to maim girls who might seek to play with them), and
they give each member of the family $1 and a UN flag. The
man strongly insists that Nafas wear the burqa so that his
reputation will not be damaged. However, robbers take all
possessions from the family at knifepoint, including the vehicle,
so they turn back to Iran, as they must otherwise make the
rest of the trip on foot, penniless. Nafas then engages Khak
(played by Sadou Teymouri); for $25 the ten-year-old is to
be her guide to Kandahar. Khak is available because he has
been kicked out of a Taliban school for lack of educational
progress. Khak is the only source of financial support for
his mother, who can neither work nor attend school according
to the Taliban dictates; her husband is dead, and her other
children are absent or nonexistent. As they proceed on foot,
Khak finds a ring on a skeleton and tries to sell the object
to Nafas. Soon, Khak gets water from a well, but she becomes
sick after drinking the impure water. She then goes to the
dwelling of a healer, Tabib Sahid (played by Hassan Tantaï,
an African American rumored to be the prime suspect in a 1980
murder of an Iranian dissident in Bethesda), who went to Afghanistan
"in search of God" and now pretends to be a doctor,
since most Afghanis die from such simple maladies as dehydration,
diarrhea, and malnutrition, reminiscent of the major causes
of death under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Since he cannot
grow a beard, as required by the Taliban, he glues hair onto
his face. After examining her through a hole in a cloth hung
from the ceiling of his tent, Sahid urges Nafas to drop Khak,
for another fee, as he is doubtless trying only to extract
money from her and does not really know the way to Kandahar.
She agrees, but the boy tries to sell her the ring; when she
refuses, he gives the object to her anyway. Nafas then approaches
a Red Cross encampment, pleading for a vehicle to take her
to Kandahar. The mission of the agency is to provide leg prosthetics
to those who lose limbs due to the landmines, and we see several
cases of Afghan men and women who have stumps for legs but
have waited for up to a year for their prosthetics to be parachuted
to the camp. Finally, Sahid drives her to the outskirts of
Kandahar, where Nafas tries to join a wedding procession;
but soon all the women are robbed and taken prisoner, so she
never gets a chance to see her sister. The grim picture of
life under the Taliban, which paints an agenda for post-Taliban
aid, earns for Kandahar, directed and written
by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the first nomination for the year 2002
-- as best film exposé. MH
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