The film Safar e Ghandehar was shown in the U.S. with the title Kandahar (2001). It was written and directed by the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Nelofer Pazira plays Nafas, a woman from Afghanistan who now lives in Canada. She travels to Iran, and then to Afghanistan, to help her sister. (Her sister is terribly depressed, and plans to commit suicide within a few days.)
There's a very grim scene in Iran, when children returning to Afghanistan are taught to avoid picking up dolls, because they may be booby-trapped with explosives. Then Nafas crosses into Afghanistan with a group of returning refugees.
The remainder of the movie--set in Afghanistan--makes the situation in Iran look idyllic. All the women wear the burqa (burka), so that we can't see them, and they have to see the world through a semi-transparent veil.
Lawlessness abounds. Gunmen--I assume they are Taliban--roam the area and operate at will. Most horribly, people with amputated limbs are everywhere. There's a whole culture of amputations and artificial limbs, with more amputations from land mines every day.
Nafas makes her way though this dangerous landscape in what is, in essence, a road movie. Although the people she meets are interesting--and sometimes generous and helpful--the situation is so depressing that it's hard to find any comfort while watching the film.
This movie gives us a snapshot of what it would be like to be a woman--accustomed to living in North American--who has returned to a very different homeland from the one she left. The director is Iranian, so I don't know how authentically the scenes represent Afghanistan. My guess is that they are authentic, and that they portray a sad and horrible truth.
We saw the film on DVD. I think it would work better in a theater. It's a great--if grim--movie, and it's worth seeking out and viewing.
(Note that the director of Kandahar, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, is the director who is impersonated by the protagonist in the Kiarostami movie Close-Up.)
Nelofer Pazira plays Nafas, a woman from Afghanistan who now lives in Canada. She travels to Iran, and then to Afghanistan, to help her sister. (Her sister is terribly depressed, and plans to commit suicide within a few days.)
There's a very grim scene in Iran, when children returning to Afghanistan are taught to avoid picking up dolls, because they may be booby-trapped with explosives. Then Nafas crosses into Afghanistan with a group of returning refugees.
The remainder of the movie--set in Afghanistan--makes the situation in Iran look idyllic. All the women wear the burqa (burka), so that we can't see them, and they have to see the world through a semi-transparent veil.
Lawlessness abounds. Gunmen--I assume they are Taliban--roam the area and operate at will. Most horribly, people with amputated limbs are everywhere. There's a whole culture of amputations and artificial limbs, with more amputations from land mines every day.
Nafas makes her way though this dangerous landscape in what is, in essence, a road movie. Although the people she meets are interesting--and sometimes generous and helpful--the situation is so depressing that it's hard to find any comfort while watching the film.
This movie gives us a snapshot of what it would be like to be a woman--accustomed to living in North American--who has returned to a very different homeland from the one she left. The director is Iranian, so I don't know how authentically the scenes represent Afghanistan. My guess is that they are authentic, and that they portray a sad and horrible truth.
We saw the film on DVD. I think it would work better in a theater. It's a great--if grim--movie, and it's worth seeking out and viewing.
(Note that the director of Kandahar, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, is the director who is impersonated by the protagonist in the Kiarostami movie Close-Up.)