Waste of Money.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Kandahar or Safar e Ghandehar is a film that tells about a journey towards Kandahar, the second largest city of Afghanistan, undertaken by Nafas, a young female journalist who escaped Afghanistan with her family but must return and race against time in an attempt to rescue her sister. Nafas, 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. 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. The film is inspired by the real-life experience of actress Nelofer Pazira, who plays Nafas. In 1989, she fled her homeland of Afghanistan and later received a similar letter not from a sister, but from a long-time friend who wanted to end her life in a similar situation starting her trek from the Iran-Afghanistan border, Nafas disguises herself as the fourth wife of an elderly Afghan man. As Nafas' desperation grows (she has only three days to reach Kandahar before her sister kills herself, on the day of the last solar eclipse of the century), the images grow more and more dreamlike. At one point, Nafas encounters a madrasah, where boys with AK47 rifles intone verses from their holy book as a bearded mullah looks on. Later, with the help of an English-speaking African American doctor, she wanders into a Red Cross relief center for mine victims. Nafas's guide, hidden behind a false beard, points out to her that the only technological progress allowed in the country is weaponry. One healthy man named Sahid continually begs the nurses to let him have a set of legs for his mother -- legs he will no doubt sell on the black market. The doctor guide persuades Sahid, who finally gets a pair of artificial legs, to accompany Nafas in her journey, until they run into a wedding party traveling into Kandahar. Nafas attempts to fit in with the party, but the end of the road is unfortunately near for her. Dressed in burkas, the pair joins a wedding party which is stopped by the Taliban because they are playing musical instruments and singing--forbidden by Afghan law. Her guide is taken away and she is unveiled.Makhmalbaf ominously concludes by showing us Nafas' point of view as she lowers her burkha,literally and powerfully drawing a veil over her fate. Captured, she seems destined to fall into the same kind of life that she hoped to help her sister escape. Interestingly the film begins and ends with that brilliant shot of lowering of the burkha by Nafas, perhaps reminding us of the famous couplet: "And the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we started". This shot of the movie, a solar eclipse as seen through the burka's mesh and its blinding effects seem to have irradiated the heroine into a kind of waking stupor. Nafas' journey is long and rambling and may have only taken place in her head. But, as the movie's director Mohsen Makhmalbaf implicitly asks in every scene, what is Afghanistan but a state of mind?It is filmed documentary-style, but the plot is heavily scripted. Also, the English-language dialogue suffers from flat delivery. The protagonist seems phony; every potentially poignant moment is ruined by her deadpan method of speaking. Visually, the film is stunning at times, especially when one sees the wedding party march in the desert. The sea of burqas in contrasting colors (such as emerald, black, ochre yellow, peach, white, purple, etc.) is absolutely stunning. There's even surrealism when prosthetic legs for land mine victims at a Red Cross camp parachute to the groundBut the quality of the cinematography is not enough to rescue the flawed direction. The vast open spaces also allow Makhmalbaf and his outstanding cinematographer, Ebrahim Ghafouri, to create a steady flow of stunning images, accompanied by Mohammad Reza Darvishi's intoxicating yet spare score. . . The plot is not very thoroughly developed. The scenery is beautiful, in a stark way, and the plot is barely enough to keep a viewer dramatically involved, but the point is to learn about life in today's Afghanistan.The Taliban is gone, but the socio-cultural matrix which gave rise to its existence still flourishes in Afghanistan. It will take a lot more than a few years to heal that wounded countryWriting in The New York Times,A.O.Scott noted that both Kandahar and Abbas Kiarostami's "ABC Africa"(about Ugandan orphans) "contain moment of sublime visual poetry that at once heighten and complicate their humanitarian message". Even though it deals directly with neither war nor terrorist violence, it is an anti war movie with a difference.

I came to this movie thinking it would be a documentary--and it is, in a way: it was filmed in what appears to be war-torn Afghanistan, and it includes some genuine news footage. At first, I was confused because "reality" soon gives way to scenes and behavior that could only be called, at best, surreal; at worst, bizarre. The main character, who is also the voice-over narrator, is played by an Afghanistan-born Canadian actress impersonating herself. The rest of the cast, with three exceptions, seem to be Afghanis speaking their native dialects. However, through their gestures, speech rhythms, and of course the subtitles, I would guess they are recently recruited actors. To me, it feels more like classical Greek drama than realism. But that's okay with me: fiction can be truer than fact, to reverse the old cliché. Though flawed, the film is powerful at the emotional level. The cinematography is spectacular. I came out feeling I had a deeper understanding of the tragic history of Afghanistan

I was moved by the beauty brought to a situation of suffering and tragedy. As our protagonist struggles to find her sister, the horrors of postwar Afghanistan are revealed through simple encounters with a variety of people with struggles of their own. The pacing, which may seem tedious to folks used to fast action, allows a lyrical visual beauty to arise where another filmmaker may have shown chaos. In turn, this lyrical beauty creates a stillness where compassion begins and grows. What was distant & abstract becomes close & personal. We're shown a perspective on war that is at once starkly simple and deeply caring. I also enjoyed the taste of Persian culture. The legacy of Hafiz, Rumi & other great Persian poets flavors the vivid poetics of Makhmalbaf's cinematography, dialog, and plot structure. Quite a taut alternative to our American viewpoint.

It is hard to say anything negative about such a well-intentioned and well-produced film, but I found Kandahar an immense disappointment. The film deals seriously with a serious subject, and one which is still relevant (since life for women since the fall of the Taliban hasn't improved as much as we'd like to think). It is also beautifully shot, and has a captivating soundtrack made up from Afghan music. There are also some interesting characters, such as the American activist who went to Afghanistan to fight the Russians and stayed to use his para-medical skills to help the Afghan people. The one ingredient missing is a plot. There is a plot-device: the heroine is going to Kandahar to find her sister (who has written to say that she will commit suicide). However, this is merely a vehicle for a travelogue. As a documentary showing life under the Taliban, Kandahar is excellent, but as a film, it is weak.