Kandahar (2001)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Since the start of the film the audience is fooled to believe that it is a story about a woman trying to stop her sister from committing suicide. For that she goes through a long journey to Kandahar which is in a region where women are not expected to travel alone without a man (i.e his husband or brother). But the story slowly evolves and penetrates into the life of people there. Throughout the experience there are times where in one can see the struggles of the Afghans but also the fact that major things for us like losing a limb because of a land mine seems like a daily routine for them.The filmmaker has clearly set his priorities right. Many people feel the end was unsatisfactory since the whole point of stopping the character's sister from dying was completely neglected. The end seemed incomplete but this "unfinished" work was what I liked the most. In the end you are made to realize that issues like suicide is nothing compared to the struggle of the people living there daily fighting or precisely being victims of terror, suppression, mass murder. So the motive of the journey wasn't substantially important for the filmmaker as much as the journey itself. He chose to discard what seemed unimportant and that is what really made this movie stand out. What the movie lacked was the true essence of being there. Throughout the film, the afghans were portrayed as mere victims with a life full of struggles. The film seemed to be from a foreign point of view. This film is worth a watch. I give it a 7

Safar e Ghandehar or the English translation "Kandahar" is an Afghani film expressing the long and difficult journey of an Arab American woman seeking her sister in through the Middle Eastern deserts on her way to Kandahar, the second largest city of Afghanistan. This film is regarded with praise as it holds awards, however, comparing Kandahar to American films, it stands as absolutely nothing special in the opinions of Americans, and in the opinion of my own. Kandahar is slow, repetitive, and holds no sentimental meaning. With the tension that is held between the United States and the Middle East, this film does not help the feud.Usually in stories, not just films, but in literature period, you have 7 structures to a good plot. There is the Leading character, an inciting incident that throws the main character out of balance, a objective for the character, obstacles in the characters way, a crisis which is the toughest obstacle for the character, a climax were the story is at its highest point, and a resolution where the action falls and the story is left at an end or at interpretation. All of these elements are essential for telling a story, now let's look at Kandahar. We are introduced to the leading female character as we learn she is thrown off balance by her sister who needs help, her objective which is to find and save her sister, obstacles where she has to travel though a dangerous dessert flooding with thieves. This is where the film ends, that is all this movie has to offer. Did she find her sister? We don't know many Arab films have open endings because they believe that life is a journey and should always be left open. In my opinion that is absurd and stories of that genre are rubbish. As far as I know every journey I've ever been through has an end, but life can still continue even if a journey such as High School or a show production ends. I cannot decipher why these filmmakers would do this. I just wasted and hour of a half of my life that i will never get back in watching half of a movie. That is like watching Star Wars and the movie is turned off before the X-wings enter the Death Star trench. That is like ending Citizen Kane without showing the audience the Rosebud sled. The film get's the audience into these characters and awaits some kind of crisis that would lead to the climax and resolution, but instead we are left with an unfinished film. Unless if there is a Kandahar 2 (god forbid), this film serves no purpose. The leading characters sister wanted to commit suicide in the film, I don't blame her, I wan contemplating killing myself half way through this film too.I cannot help but express my feeling towards this atrocious film, let alone writing an essay about it. America has made some pretty bad films, but few of them compare the animosity of this example of an Arab film. I'd rather watch Ed Wood films without a companion to tell jokes too. I'd rather watch an edited copy of the Star Wars prequels that only show the scenes with Hayden Christiansen. I'd rather watch the extended directors cut of Dune. I'd rather watch the dance sequence in Spider-man 3 over and over again . If my life were a movie, I'd call up Doctor Emit Brown and borrow his DeLorean so I can drive 88 miles per hour, go back in time, and prevent this film from ever being made. No one on this earth, that includes criminals and terrorists deserve the torture of watching Kandahar, and anyone who shows this film is the meanest and most sadistic individual on the face of this green earth. Watching this film in class made me happier that I have changed my major to theater so I can never run any risk of being forced to watch such a terrible movie ever again.

A poster wrote "There is one remarkable scene wherein hordes of desperate, one-legged men hobble on crutches across the desert as Red Cross helicopters rain prosthetic limbs down onto the sands below". Well, the scene was total B***S***! The Red Cross has worked in Afghanistan for nearly 30 years and for probably half that time has had the world's largest orthopaedic programme. Each and every limb is made to fit for each person and then there are weeks of rehabilitation in one of the many well equipped orthopaedic centres around the country after the limb has been fitted. There is no need to buy and sell them on the black market because they are free of charge to anyone who needs one. Always have been and always will be. There is also no way on earth that the Red Cross ortho programme has ever been run out of tents in the desert and absolutely no way the Red Cross ever dropped double prosthetics out of helicopters or planes. The entire scene is an insult to the Red Cross. And before you howl me down I have been working in Afghanistan and have seen the work done by the Red Cross before, during and after the rule of the Taliban. The writer, producers and directors should be ashamed of themselves.

Nafas is an Afghan refugee in Canada, separated from what remains of her family. When she receives a letter from her sister in Kandahar saying that she intends to kill herself at the next eclipse, Nafas sets out to enter Afghanistan and find her sister in order to rescue her. Joining a family traveling across the desert she quickly remembers why she fled the country in the first place as her status as a woman is as dangerous as the unseen landmines as she tries to find her sister before time runs out.I knew little about this film prior to watching it apart from that it was popular mostly due to its unfortunate relevance. Watching it from the start to the end I must admit that, as a film or a story it was not as good as some viewers have said. The narrative is simplistic and seems to alter the passing of time to suit itself, while major holes in plotting are rather annoying if that is what you are focusing on. The film also struggles in terms of characters, with Nafas being rather bland and hard to care for, her sister being unseen and not in any more danger than those we do see (ie minimising our passion for the quest) and even the noble Talib Sahid came across as rather an unlikely character to stumble upon.However, I still consider this to be a film worth seeing even after all that. Why? Well, simply because of the view it gives us of Afghanistan – a view that not even the British media did a good job of giving us when the conflict started. I watched this thinking 'this is the country we have been bombing for several years now?' and, while I knew it was hardly the most technologically advanced country, it doesn't really hit home until you see it and, with US news coverage of this side of the country being limited to hyped-up soldiers then this film should be seen to help balance it all out. So Nafas' journey is little more than an excuse to show many aspects of the country within a sort of story and, as that, it is worth seeing – it is hard not to feel for the people as you see the treatment of women, the poor facilities, the horrors of landmines and so on.True to the weakness of the plot, the ending just sort of 'happens' and those who had been holding to the hope of the vague narrative becoming stronger will also be let down. This is not a film to come to for a story or a strong plot because in these areas it is pretty weak and not very good as a film as you'd expect one to be. However it provides insight into a country that we have all heard a lot about over the past few years and, for that and that alone, it is valuable and worth seeing if you can get the chance.