I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Captivating movie !

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is about the return to the place of childhood; a woman must return to Kandahar before the next eclipse when her sister plans to commit suicide. She is an ex-pat journalist so that we can have an intellectual view about the contrasts of life whispered into a tape recorder but all that is flat and uninteresting and the poetic soliloquies even more. Brush that aside. No, why this should be illuminating is because it swoops down in a strange corner of the world and finds intimacy and truth among the absurdity. Not for any contrasts the filmmaker can whisper to us but for those the place can whisper to his camera. This is what Chris Marker did again and again, who is the inspiration behind this; the eye reflected back. This too what Herzog did, who chases after absurdities because the landscape close to them tilts revelations.Absurdities abound along the way here; a makeshift hospital where amputees clamor to be fitted with crude artificial legs, the legs dropped from the sky. The rosy afterglow of flat desert is an evocative canvas, the veiled women chill like they always do with that sense of wasted beauty. But so little here feels stumbled on to, discovered, open; it feels stagy and contrived. A quick look at the background of the film reveals that it was shot, a little more safely perhaps, on this side of the Iranian border. The faces, the dresses, the landscape, all these are probably not much different than over there, but there's also no urgency anymore. I won't pretend to know better than the filmmaker of course but the whole film strikes me as more about culture than reflection, the kind of culture about faraway, oppressed places patrons love to consume at film festivals in Europe.Maybe it's his way of saying there are no more vital truths than the absurdity that people contrive to create that has a male doctor examining an Afghan female patient through a hole so as to not see her face. But there must be, there are.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf's "Safar-e Ghandehar" ("Kandahar" in English) is one of those movies that turned out to be more significant than the people involved in the production assumed that it would be. Even when it got screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, most people worldwide had never heard of the Afghan city. But the 9/11 attacks focused everyone's attention on the Central Asian country, and suddenly, cities like Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif started appearing on the nightly news.This Iranian-French co-production makes the Taliban's Afghanistan look like the most miserable place, especially for women. The saddest thing is that the Taliban would've never taken over had the USSR not invaded Afghanistan, prompting the US to back Islamist fighters against the Soviet army. Even with the Taliban out of power, the situation for women in Afghanistan looks as bleak as can be (to say nothing of Afghanistan's narco-economy).The most interesting thing about this movie is that it shows us people's daily lives in an isolated society. Told from the point of view of an Afghan-Canadian woman looking for her sister, it's a devastating look at the country. I recommend it.

"Kandahar (Safar e Ghandehar)" is the "Apocalypse Now" of the Afghan Wars-- an artist's vision that is strikingly visual, combined with enough facts to confuse us between reality and fiction, though "Kandahar" strays even more into pseudo-documentary territory into the literal Heart of Darkness. Far less didactic than another recent Iranian film that grimly looked at women's lives under fanatic Islam, "The Circle," "Kandahar" was inspired by a Canadian-Afghani journalist's real quest and somewhat improvised around the people she and the director met on the Afghan-Iranian border while shooting the film, and utilized as amateur actors (including one now identified as a Khomeini-directed assassin).The images are simply stunning and unforgettable (such that the noisy popcorn eaters stopped crunching bags mid-handful)-- prosthetic limbs parachuted into desert Red Cross stations chased by amputees on crutches, posed family portraits with the plural wives covered in burkhas, a mullah martinet leading a crowded class of a madrassas in rote memorization of both the Koran and the use of weapons, and women covered in multi-colored burkhas sweeping over the desert to a frightening check-point.But all are shown as complex, surprising characters -- the amputees are victims of land mines set up by many different sources over the decades or maybe, in a region filled with crafty con men and survival thieves, are victims of rough justice; the mullah is feeding the starving boys; and the husband defends the use of the burkha as a traditional point of honor. Of course even little touches mean more now -- we understand the look of fearful unease as one man mutters that he can't go to Kandahar because he's been in the prison there. It's not just the women who lead lives of quiet desperation in war-torn Afghanistan.There's no conventional ending, only our imaginations, but then who knows wither Afghanistan? (originally written 12/31/2001)

It's a sad statement on America's worldview that it took a horrible tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, to awaken Americans to the brutality of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Until then, most Americans didn't care about the vicious and ruthless nature of those who governed that country.Former President Bill Clinton said his one regret during his presidency was that he did nothing while nearly one million people were slaughtered in Rwanda. True. But he should also consider why the U.S., this beacon of democracy, did nothing while the Taliban mistreated women and massacred Afghanis. Even George W. Bush gave the Taliban nary a thought until that horrific day in 2001.When it was initially released, Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf's film, "Kandahar," probably had little chance of finding an audience in the U.S. After all, at the time, the majority of Americans wouldn't have been able to find Afghanistan on a map, let alone know where Kandahar was. But then Sept. 11 happened and Kandahar, like Kabul and Spin Boldak, became household words in American homes. U.S. TV networks rushed out experts on Afghanistan and reported on the Taliban's brutality as if they'd uncovered a previously unknown fact.Of course, all that's changed now. We don't care about Afghanistan anymore. Not after this administration concocted evidence and launched an unjust war against Iraq, gaining support for it by frightening Americans. Paranoia is patriotic. Also, covering the downfall of a barbaric regime that didn't put up a fight isn't as sexy as giving round-the-clock coverage on a pop star accused of child molestation or a yet another rich, young, white woman gone missing in California. Watching "Kandahar," you'll no doubt wonder why we didn't intervene years ago. If this film doesn't make Americans truly appreciate their lives and rights, which they take for granted, nothing will.The film's inspired by true events. Writer and star Nelofer Pazira, who fled Kabul with her family, tried to enter Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to search for her best friend who stayed behind. Pazira never got beyond the Iranian-Afghan border. But filmmaker Makhmalbaf, whom Pazira had contacted earlier, decided two years later to fictionalize Pazira's story.I admit I was in two minds after watching "Kandahar." The acting's amateurish - they're all non-actors - and the storytelling is, at times, a bit heavy-handed. I don't know whether it was a good idea to cast Pazira. Her character carries the entire film and it needs someone who can pulls us into her plight. Pazira's narration occasionally gets ponderous. The film relies heavily on that narration to serve as exposition; a good example of tell don't show, when films should be otherwise. Pazira never varies her voice and her monotone can be off-putting. A stronger actress could have done wonders with the role.However, these flaws could be ignored because of what the film's trying to tell us. Maybe we're too spoiled by professional-looking Hollywood films to appreciate something like this. The film's beautifully shot and contains several wrenching moments. I shan't spoil it for you, but there's an unforgettably potent moment in a Red Cross camp."Kandahar" makes a good double feature with Siddiq Barmak's "Osama" (2003). Also, do yourself a great favor - read Khaled Hosseini's powerful novel, "The Kite Runner," a film adaptation of which will be directed by Sam Mendes."Kandahar" proves great nations should help oppressed people even if the assistance doesn't fall into the narrow category of national interest. That would be an acceptable reason than scaring an uninformed populace with fake evidence about nonexistent WMDs. "Kandahar" might not look polished, the acting not brilliant. But I'll take this film any day over huge, glossy Hollywood clunkers - "Be Cool" and "Hostage," for instance - showing in theaters right now.