In the past ten years Iran has surprisingly emerged as the scene of a vibrant national cinema. One of the most striking things about Iranian film is its spare yet vividly colorful shot composition. Iran is a sad and beautiful place as presented through the eyes of its filmmakers, who seem to be tentatively hopeful about their country's future.
After periods of unrest in the late 70s and 80s, Iran by the late 90s seemed on the verge of renewal. The fact that 9/11 occurred on top of an already slumping economy has muted but certainly not eliminated such hopes. The country will be fortunate if it has a fraction of the success of its film industry.
Kandahar, now one of the most famous foreign releases of the past year, was actually rescued by September 11th. Opening a few months before September 2001, Kandahar failed to make a name for itself on the festival circuit and was not picked up by a major North American distributor.
Following September 11th, the news media was caught in a flurried determination to prove that “everything has changed.” Arts pages discussed how our taste in art could be swayed: Would we be more drawn toward tragic films? What about political films or action flicks? Some writers went as far as suggesting that 9/11 would finally do away with irony and catalyze a new movement of social realism.
The most famous concrete adjustments made in the movie industry were a major delay in the release of the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger action/explosion extravaganza and the instantaneous pickup of Kandahar.
While Iranian films are often political, Kandahar drew instant attention as the only contemporary feature film specifically about Afghanistan. Made by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and mostly shot in his country, Kandahar is about the plight of women under the Taliban and the difficulty of outsiders to enter the country or contest the regime. The film follows an Afghani émigré as she tries to rescue her sister from the oppressive regime of her home country.
Like many Iranian films, Kandahar is surreal. In one sense it is a politically straightforward film shot in a quasi-documentary style. This realism makes the unfamiliarity of the film’s action seem all the more bizarre. Kandahar’s surrealism depends on the viewer being relatively unfamiliar with the daily goings on of life in Afghanistan.
Here, it is normal for prosthetic legs to drop from the sky in mini-parachutes. To an American audience, the women, who are forced to dress fully covered in brightly colored burguas, seem like ghosts in their shrouds with peek holes.
That this film was shot in English demonstrates Makhmalbaf's awareness of a potentially large foreign audience. His spare mise-en-scène is highly effective. With the desert as the film’s vast stage, commonplace events seem potently unreal. This could also be the convenient by-product of a low budget, which more than encourages on-location shooting.
One of the film’s weaknesses is its dialogue. Makhmalbaf is not a native speaker, which can be gleaned from the awkwardness of many lines. Still, while many films grow more frenetic and formalist, Kandahar offers needed contemplative space to consider the tragedy within the film and equally incomprehensible, unexplainable tragedy in real life.