Metro Australia — January 2018

72 •Metro Magazine 195 | © ATOM

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ally moved back, they returned to the ‘small and isolated village

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they featured and her own experiences.

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enced and learned informs every part of6NKE@MC2GDDO.

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demarcations, chatter, expectations and traditions that she

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nation is constantly associated with.

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shop that had activities in countries with poor cinema indus

tries, spreading the cinema vérité style.’ Through this, she

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There’s certainly a need for movies about Afghanistan that

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gion’s struggles, as evidenced in6GHRJDX 3@MFN %NWSQNS*OHQQ

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account of the tumult surrounding a music competition, loosely

adapting the documentary EFG@M 2S@Q+DYDQD 0DUNLQJ 

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which pairs the guilt of a boy over his treatment of a friend with

the cruelty and violence of the Taliban.

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nuance, focusing on the plight of Afghans rather than that of

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rector Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s*@MC@G@Q(2001) delves into the

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as a boy in order to provide for her family under the prevail

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/@SHDMBD 2SNMD(2012) depicts the burden worn by the wife of

an older man incapacitated by a bullet in his neck, using this

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to documentaries, which expectedly examine the toll of war:

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account of Afghan soldiers in QL@CHKKN-DQXV 0HW] 

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after reports of encroaching gunmen – a potent reminder of

the nation’s troubles, which is effective because audiences

havealready witnessed the life they’re being forced to abandon.

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Afghan actors who convey their characters’ plights as though

they’ve lived these themselves,6NKE @MC 2GDDOproves unlike

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portrait made by someone who has been through or witnessed

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ence elsewhere, encountered prevailing conceptions of her

homeland and become conscientious about the need to make

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the Cannes Film Festival’s Cinéfondation residency – have as

sisted her in crafting a personal yet universal representation of

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tion of the country eventuates in6NKE @MC 2GDDOis as much

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depicts are framed as just that, but, to viewers fed a diet of

media that paint Afghanistan differently, they’re extraordinary.

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Endnote

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