2001ஆம் ஆண்டில் திரைக்கு வந்த படம். பல மிகச் சிறந்த திரைப்படங்களை இயக்கி, உலக அளவில் புகழ் பெற்ற இயக்குனராக ஒளி வீசிக் கொண்டிருக்கும் ஈரானிய திரைப்பட இயக்குனர் Mohsen Makhmalmaf இயக்கிய ஒரு மாறுபட்ட கதைக் கருவைக் கொண்ட இப்படம், வித்தியாசமான படங்களைப் பார்ப்போர்கள் மத்தியில் பெரிய அளவில் கொண்டாடப்பட்டுக் கொண்டிருக்கிறது.
பொழுது போக்கு அம்சங்களைக் கொண்ட படங்களை உருவாக்கி விட்டு, ஏதோ பெரிதாக சாதித்து விட்டோம் என்று மார்பைத் தட்டிக் கொண்டு ஆர்ப்பரிப்போருக்கு மத்தியில், யாரும் எடுப்பதற்காக அஞ்சக் கூடிய ஒரு பேசப்படும் கதைக் கருவைக் கையாண்டு, அதை ஒரு நேர்த்தியான திரைப்படமாக எடுத்திருக்கும் Mohsen Makhmalmafன் அசாத்திய துணிச்சலை நாம் பாராட்டியே ஆக வேண்டும்.
''Kandahar''
is bound to attract potential audiences, if only because it may be the
only film whose name gets more mentions than Harry Potter on CNN. Though
the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf's picture was filmed long before
today's breaking news from Afghanistan, it is worthy of some attention
because it happens to portray the culture -- specifically the treatment
of women in that Taliban stronghold -- in forceful and dramatic terms.
An Afghan journalist, Nafas (Nelofer Pazira), who left Afghanistan and
is now based in Canada, goes back home to find her troubled sister. Mr.
Makhmalbaf isn't much of a storyteller, and Ms. Pazira is more than his
equal in her lack of acting ability. She looks slightly distracted when
staring into the camera; she seems to be waiting for instructions to
change expression to come over an ear piece, and the instructions never
quite get there. Yet she has the command of someone who is accustomed to
sitting before the camera and holds positions as if she were born to be
there, which makes her the film's star by sheer power of concentration.
(In real life Ms. Pazira, who grew up in Kabul, is a Canadian
television journalist.) To say that she doesn't lend a great deal of
emotional credibility to ''Kandahar,'' which opens today at the Lincoln
Plaza, is an understatement.
As Nafas slips into Afghanistan to begin her search, she runs into a
number of situations that almost make the movie seem to be taking place
on a back lot, a dreamy Never-was Land where each scene is a setup for
another surprise. (The movie was filmed in Iran.) But the bleached,
sun-beaten landscapes are undeniably real, as are the hardships that the
women suffer as they battle to survive the inhospitable land and the
rigidity of the Taliban. Children play and pray while machine guns, worn
and obviously used, sit near their feet. Desperation has a ghostly
presence here: it's never spoken, but we can feel it nonetheless, and
it's a part of the everyday life in the encampments where these women
live.
Nafas meets a doctor who treats women in a most unusual fashion, at
least to Westerners, and who isn't what he seems. He talks to his female
patients while they're under a sheet -- he views them through a hole --
and the low-key assurance in his voice is a marvelous contradiction to
the strangeness of the situation. By this point Ms. Pazira's vacant
stare has become a part of the texture of ''Kandahar'': you almost can't
imagine anybody else -- certainly not someone who might actually react
to these unusual proceedings -- as the lead.
On this level the director displays talent by providing notes of
absurdity and unforgettable visuals. Somehow it's as if he is cognizant
that his star, and most of the rest of the cast, for that matter, simply
can't carry a scene. His compensatory touches have a jaw-dropping
power: for example a shot of prosthetic limbs parachuting onto the bleak
desert landscape as scores of handicapped men on crutches await the
legs as they fall from the sky. When he pulls off things like this,
''Kandahar'' feels like a Magritte painting rendered in sand tones, and
your eyes are drawn to the screen.
There aren't enough of these moments, though, and Mr. Makhmalbaf
lessens their power by repeating them. He knows he is dealing with a
hot, potent subject, and he has an eye for astonishing imagery, which he
integrates into ''Kandahar'' in such a way that the film occasionally
succeeds on its own made-under-a-full-moon terms: it's a wide-screen
daydream. But the way the film works defeats any melodramatic urgency in
this tale of enduring punishment. The awful moments he creates have the
time-delay impact of a nightmare: the potency of the horrors hit and
linger after the freakishness of an image or a moment fades away and the
creeping realization of exactly what you've just witnessed finally hits
you. Sometimes that impact comes like a blow to the back of the head.
KANDAHAR
Written, edited and directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf; in Farsi and English, with English subtitles; director of photography, Ebraham Ghafouri; music by Mohamad Reza Darvishi; produced by Makhmalbaf Film House and Bac Films; released by Avatar Films. At the Lincoln Plaza, Broadway at 62nd Street. Running time: 85 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Nelofer Pazira (Nafas), Hassan Tantai (Tabib Sahid) and Sadou Teymouri (Khak).
KANDAHAR
Written, edited and directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf; in Farsi and English, with English subtitles; director of photography, Ebraham Ghafouri; music by Mohamad Reza Darvishi; produced by Makhmalbaf Film House and Bac Films; released by Avatar Films. At the Lincoln Plaza, Broadway at 62nd Street. Running time: 85 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Nelofer Pazira (Nafas), Hassan Tantai (Tabib Sahid) and Sadou Teymouri (Khak).
The film Kandahar serves as a timely memorial to the brutality of the Taleban regime, and its release comes as the world's attention is focused on the town after which it is named.
One day the world will see your problems and come to your aid
|
|
But it is given added edge by the knowledge that the Taleban regime is collapsing in real life as the movie unfolds.
At the beginning of the film one of the characters tells a crowd of Afghan refugees that "one day the world will see your problems and come to your aid".
But when the film was made, few people would have been able to find Kandahar on a map. The world had turned its back on Afghanistan.
Beneath the veil
The film tells the story of an Afghan-Canadian journalist, Nafas, who returns to Kandahar to rescue her sister who is so depressed that she has threatened to kill herself before the last solar eclipse of the 20th century.
As she enters Afghanistan, Nafas is told she must wear a burqa - the all-encompassing veil - to protect the honour of her male escort.
|
Her veil is not one of the now familiar blue nylon burqas, but a woven muted green and pink veil. In one scene she joins a large group of women going to a wedding party, all wearing brightly-coloured burqas.
The women may be faceless, but the veils themselves are strangely beautiful.
By ordering women to be fully covered, the religious militia also never quite know what is underneath the veil.
But the audience is permitted to look inside: girls secretly apply lipstick and paint their nails; Nafas carries a tape-recorder; and a man uses the subterfuge to escape arrest.
Surreal
The journey to Kandahar must be completed within three days if Nafas is to rescue her sister, which gives the film an urgency that highlights the unbearable timelessness of Afghanistan - a country where time seems to have stopped.
This surrealism is not an aesthetic device, but a straight portrayal of a people pushed to the limits of survival.
|
The laboured repetition dramatises the absurdity of daily life in Afghanistan in a way in which straight reporting can rarely do.
As the journey continues we are taken on a tour of the surreal land which decades of war and the Taleban regime have wrought out of Afghanistan.
This surrealism is not an aesthetic device, but a straight portrayal of a people pushed to the limits of survival.
In one of the most memorable scenes, a group of one-legged landmine victims race on crutches to claim pairs of false legs that Red Cross helicopters have dropped from the sky. It could be from a Fellini film, yet it is quite likely to be real.
Although a feature film, Kandahar is half documentary, and many of the characters are not actors but refugees that the crew met along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment