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Safar e Ghandehar (2001) More at IMDbPro »

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50 reviews in total

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11 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Like many films from Muslim countries, "Kandahar" is vitally concerned with female emancipation…, 7 December 2008

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

The film's great success with audiences was in part due to the timing of its release, at a moment when Afghanistan had been catapulted into the headlines by the activities of the Taliban and the attacks of September 11, 2001…

But the motion picture, directed by one of Iran's most prominent film artists, is much more than a story pulled out from the headlines… It stars Nelofer Pazira, a female journalist, based in Canada, playing Nafas, who is trying to get into Afghanistan to reach her sister who lives in Kandahar… Nafas's sister is threatening suicide because of the intolerable oppression of women by the Taliban…

In the course of her long and dangerous journey, Nafas encounters a mixed array of Afghan people, many of them refugees… An old man agrees to take her into the country disguised as his fourth wife… Later she acquires a young boy, Khak (Sadou Teymouri), as her guide after he has been expelled from a religious school… On the way she meets Tabib Sahid, an African-American who had come to fight the Soviets but who is now practicing medicine…

"Kandahar" mixes documentary authenticity with extraordinary moments of visual strangeness ad beauty… The Burka is an ever-present symbol of women's subjugation, yet underneath women wear varnished nails and lipstick, and their brightly-colored robes affirm their individuality… The film placed the suffering of the Afghan people, particularly the women, on an international stage…

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14 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
A long strange journey into the past in the present., 29 November 2004

Author: Chris Bright from London

This is an extremely beautiful film which inhabits a visual and emotional territory somewhere between Werner Herzog and Pasolini.

As others have stated, the actors are non-professionals and the plot is not the stuff of Hollywood melodrama. However the images and sounds are haunting and profound. Mahkmalbaf is truly a poet of the cinema.

The film does not attempt to make a political analysis of the situation of Afghanistan in 2001, but operates on a more humanistic and emotional level, showing the human consequences, the poverty both material and spiritual of life under the Taliban and the indifference of the outside world.

The "doctor" character, far from being implausible, is played by a real person with a very similar history. He is also a stand-in within the film for Makhmalbaf himself, who started as an Islamic fundamentalist revolutionary but has moved towards a more open-minded humanism.

The film itself describes a circle, the first scene is also the last, the sun shining through a burqa onto a woman's face. Between are unforgettable images, and a transit across a surreal and nightmarish landscape. Surrender yourself and you will really feel you have been on a journey.

The UK DVD also includes "The Afghan Alphabet" a similarly fictionalised documentary on the struggle to bring education to the three million or so Afghan refugees in Iran.

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18 out of 30 people found the following review useful:
fascinating pseudo-documentary film, 27 July 2003
Author: Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States

When you see `Kandahar,' it's almost impossible to believe that you're watching a film set in the late 20th Century. Mohsen Makhmalbaf's film takes place in Afghanistan in the latter days of the Taliban regime, when women were not merely viewed as second class citizens, but were denied any form of education or civil rights and even had to go out in public covered from head to toe to prevent men from seeing their faces. The filmmaker takes us to the heart of this alien and frightening world and makes us see, perhaps for the first time on the big screen, just how horrific life was for women in that time and place.

`Kandahar' is less a narrative film than a series of fascinating vignettes that drive home the realities of life in that part of the world. What plot there is involves the efforts of a female Canadian journalist to sneak back into her native country to prevent her desperate sister in Kandahar from committing suicide at the next solar eclipse. But that is really just a string on which to hang the individual pearls that make up the film. What is of primary interest to both the filmmaker and the audience are the various people the journalist encounters and the many experiences she undergoes. Hidden beneath her own burka, she witnesses firsthand the devastating poverty, the utter degradation and de-humanization of women, and the authoritarian oppression that defined life in that country during the Taliban rule. Along the way, she meets an American doctor who is trying his hardest to in some way relieve the misery of these people, but who finds himself waging a losing battle against the primitivism and theocratic oppression that have made life a living hell for the common citizenry of the country. She also encounters a seemingly endless group of people who have become dismembered by all the land mines left over from the Afghani war with the Russians. 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. It is merely one among many images from the film that seer themselves into the viewer's memory. Another is a scene in which a male doctor has to examine his female patients through a hole cut out of a sheet, not even being allowed to talk to the woman directly about her symptoms but having to get his information through a male (or female child) `interpreter.'

Makhmalbaf keeps the ending of the film deliberately ambiguous which might frustrate some viewers but which actually adds to the verisimilitude of the piece. In the same way, much of the acting in the film borders on the amateurish at times, but again that contributes to the pseudo-documentary aura that the film must have to be truly effective. A clear-cut narrative resolution and slick performances by obviously professional actors would likely rob the film of its much-needed sense of immediacy.

`Kandahar,' by providing a voice to so many voiceless people, is a film that cries out to be seen.

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8 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Interesting look - don't mind previous comment on Indian music, 26 June 2005

Author: Sawbone from Afghanistan

The comment on the Indian music is off base - Indian music and DVDs are common in Afghanistan as the local entertainment industry is still recovering from the Taliban.

Bollywood film DVDs are sold in Kabul. Pictures and posters of Indian actresses are popular here. It isn't unusual to hear recorded Sitar music here in Kabul.

Afghan and Indian music was distributed secretly at great risk during the Taliban reign.

There is just not enough Afghan material yet and Afghans love music, even if they don't understand Urdu.

There is a scene in the movie where an instrument is seized by the Taliban before the wedding.

So the soundtrack was completely appropriate for me.

Hopefully we will see a feature film made inside Afghanistan someday. Its a beautiful and fascinating place and holds fascinating stories.

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12 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Fascinating and harrowing, 6 May 2002
Author: JoeytheBrit from www.moviemoviesite.com

Filmed on the Iran/Afghanistan border, KANDAHAR is a semi-documentary style movie that chronicles the perilous journey undertaken by an expatriate female journalist, Nafas, to reach the city of Kandahar, where she hopes to rescue her sister from committing suicide during an impending eclipse. However, Nafas's odyssey is really little more than a device to lift the veil on the poverty and hardship of life in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Through a series of vignettes, the movie succeeds beautifully in revealing insights that are both fascinating and harrowing. It is almost impossible to imagine a culture so far removed from the relatively comfortable life enjoyed by more ‘civilised' nations. Young boys rock back and forth, reciting the Koran while learning to become Mullahs, pausing only to recite the meaning and purpose of the sabre and semi-automatic machine gun when prompted by their teacher; young girls have lessons in how to resist the temptation to pick up possibly booby-trapped dolls; a doctor treats his female patient by speaking to them via children as they sit either side of a makeshift screen, and conducts his examinations through a small hole in the screen; the threat and consequences of land-mines pervade everybody's life, and year-long waits for prosthetic legs are commonplace, so that prosthetics become a black-market currency.

True, the acting is poor – most of the cast are non-professionals, many never even having seen a moving picture before appearing in this film – but, the purpose of this movie was not to dazzle us with superior acting; it was to open an eye to the hardship endured by both men and women in an oppressive regime, and, at this, it succeeds beautifully.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Abysmal after 30 mins. into the movie., 14 November 2001

Author: Pam Kaur from Edmonton, Canada

Started out to be really good, however, went downhill.There were some poignant scenes that were very good eye-openers. The "doctor" played a strong role and seemed to have a focus in life. Scenery was quite breathtaking if you like the rugged, desert look. Quite spectacular. Somehow the events that took place in the movie could not seem to hold together. Recommended for a Tuesday!!!!

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3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
3/10 -- three cool images, 22 February 2002

Author: Jim Boyd from Berkeley, CA

On balance, I was disappointed by this film. I wanted very much for it to be excellent. I have no images of Afghanistan in my mind and I wanted very much to see Kandahar from the eyes of one attempting to go there. I was disappointed. There were, however, three excellent images from this film. The first was the throng of burqua covered travelers heading toward the wedding. The second was the surreal parachuting prosthetic legs and the third was the series of family portraits taken of refugees before they returned home.

I was disappointed that this was such a western feeling film. It shocks me that the heroine was interested not in preserving her homeland or even restoring it. Her goal was merely to save her friend and leave. She did so by flashing wads of US dollars and expecting the locals to jump at the chance to get money. She even expected the refugee father to stick with her and protect her instead of his family because she had paid him. None of the indigenous people had any agency at all, and there was no remorse demonstrated about this truth.

In the film-maker's defense, I cannot imagine any distribution contract coming for a movie which does the things I am seeking, but that was my hope nevertheless.

If you see it, see it for the occasional stirring image, but don't expect plot, dialog or character development.

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3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Do yourself and the Afghan refugees a favour and send your hard-earned cash to the Red Cross instead of wasting your time., 19 November 2001

Author: eug_eug_eug from Toronto

I was very disappointed with this film. An excellent chance to portray the plight of the Afghan people was partially wasted.

Aside from a few interesting glimpses of the culture of the Afghan refugees, this film has few redeeming qualities. The scenes are contrived, the plot is sparse, and the acting is wooden. The crew would have been much better off filming a true documentary.

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4 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Red Cross in Afghanistan, 2 June 2006

Author: amb5-1

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.

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5 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
compassion & beauty in tragic suffering, 28 September 2004

Author: sandoak from northern california

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.

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