Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

serabination 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.

noralee "Kandahar (Safar e Ghandehar)" is the "Apocalypse Now" of the Afghan Wars-- an artist's vision that is strikingly visual, combined with enough facts to confuse us between reality and fiction, though "Kandahar" strays even more into pseudo-documentary territory into the literal Heart of Darkness. Far less didactic than another recent Iranian film that grimly looked at women's lives under fanatic Islam, "The Circle," "Kandahar" was inspired by a Canadian-Afghani journalist's real quest and somewhat improvised around the people she and the director met on the Afghan-Iranian border while shooting the film, and utilized as amateur actors (including one now identified as a Khomeini-directed assassin).The images are simply stunning and unforgettable (such that the noisy popcorn eaters stopped crunching bags mid-handful)-- prosthetic limbs parachuted into desert Red Cross stations chased by amputees on crutches, posed family portraits with the plural wives covered in burkhas, a mullah martinet leading a crowded class of a madrassas in rote memorization of both the Koran and the use of weapons, and women covered in multi-colored burkhas sweeping over the desert to a frightening check-point.But all are shown as complex, surprising characters -- the amputees are victims of land mines set up by many different sources over the decades or maybe, in a region filled with crafty con men and survival thieves, are victims of rough justice; the mullah is feeding the starving boys; and the husband defends the use of the burkha as a traditional point of honor. Of course even little touches mean more now -- we understand the look of fearful unease as one man mutters that he can't go to Kandahar because he's been in the prison there. It's not just the women who lead lives of quiet desperation in war-torn Afghanistan.There's no conventional ending, only our imaginations, but then who knows wither Afghanistan? (originally written 12/31/2001)

mvharish1985 I do not know if anyone else over here has realised this or not. Probably, may not be, because most of the people I found here were from either the US or UK or other Westerners.If you listen to the song which they play once in a while in this movie, it will match the following lyrics:Thwannaama Keerthana Rathaah Thava Divya Naama Gaayanthi Bhakthi Rasa Paana Prahrushta Chiththaah Daathum Krupaasahitha Darshanamaashu Thebhyah Sri Sathya Sai Bhagawan Thava Suprabhatham(Meaning in English: Devotees engrossed in singing Thy Glory are happy and blissful, when they taste the nectar of devotion. Kindly shower Thy Grace by granting them Thy Darshan. O Lord Sathya Sai! Blessed by Thy wakefulness, we pray for an auspicious day.)Aadhaaya Divya Kusumaani Manoharaani Sreepaada Poojana Vidhim Bhavadanghri Mooley Karthum Mahothsukathayaa Pravishanti Bhakthaah Sri Sathya Sai Bhagawan Thava Suprabhatham(Meaning: Bringing holy flowers with captivating colors and fragrance, for worshipping Thy Lotus Feet, in the form as prescribed by the scriptures, Thy devotees are coming in, with great yearning and enthusiasm. O Lord Sathya Sai! Blessed by Thy wakefulness, we pray for an auspicious day.)This as you might see is a verse from a song in Sanskrit in praise of a Hindu god! This is not a bloody Afghani song. This does not have any connection to Afghanistan and neither does it make any sense in the situations where it has been used in this movie. This again shows the amateurishness of this movie, apart from the crappy acting, etc. There hasn't been any research done before even attempting to take such a movie and that is quite alarming!The above song btw is is called Sri Satya Sai Suprbhatham and probably almost every Hindu in India would have heard this song! I do not understand how it did find its way into an Afghani movie!! Couldn't the movie makers apply some common sense b4 stealing a song which they thought would be cool to have in the backdrop???

Chris Bright 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.