Audience Member
the most i've liked in this movie, is the riciters of quran
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
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Audience Member
interesting and thought provoking...
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/23/23
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Audience Member
Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf dives into post-Taliban Afghanistan and tells a tale of Noqreh, a young woman struggling to redefine her role as a woman despite the protestations of her conservative father. The issues are interesting and the cinematography is pretty stunning, but unfortunately the film itself is mostly boring and too slow-paced.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/24/23
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Audience Member
'At five in the afternoon comes death' said Lorca. So I kept on expecting the heroine to die. Does She? Shan't tell. Samira Makhmalfaf was twenty-four when she made this film. (Her sister, Hana, who was fourteen at the time, made a documentary about the making of the film, which documented the problems Samira had in persuading Kabulis to take part in the film - some girls these.) A young girl in post Taliban Kabul hides her schooling from her conservative father and dreams of becoming president of Afghanistan. Despair and hope veer madly in this gloriously shot movie. There are lovely little scenes - like her conversation (in English) with a young French NATO soldier, or her male friend's friend who takes photographs - these will be her election posters. A real talent here, making a film about the first country attacked by post 9/11 USA and hailing from the next one to be.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
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Audience Member
Samira Makhmalbaf was the first to film in a war-shattered Afghanistan, creating a beautiful movie, that might not be perfect, but gives a feeling of real humanity and authenticity that is so often absent in American movies. Some of the walking sequences could have been shortened, but the story as a whole is gripping, as the crude and spartan living conditions in Afghanistan are portrayed. Nice. Worth to watch.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
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Audience Member
It is, admittedly, a marvel that director Samira Makhmalbaf has come to enjoy the career she has had so far. Once one gets past the many fascinating facts about this film, it becomes apparent that Makhmalbaf is a superior film maker with a genuine talent, though not without her faults.
This is a very important film, for a number of reasons, but most obviously in its courage when openly debating women's rights. There's a terrifically strong argument here for the emancipation of women in Islamic society, deduced in the nuances of the quick dialogues at the beginning of the film. Throughout, Makhmalbaf continuously suggests that women do not necessarily want to embrace Western culture at the expense of their own religion; rather, women want to be given more rights and, crucially, respect, whilst comfortably living within and adhering to Islam as normal. Of course, the misogynistic, fanatic society governed by men shows up with simple acts of physical violence, degrading their own stature at the expense of strengthening the women's argument.
If the rest of the film carried along this path it would have been a lot more coherent, but the main flaw is an uncertainty of focus. Each of the three acts seems to belong to a different film, taking in social documentary, drama and road movie respectively. With so many themes and issues the film, unfortunately, has to jettison a whole multitude of them to switch tone onto the next main story arc. It's hard to keep up with these different directions, but it's not a major problem.
Makhmalbaf's ramshackle approach actually conceals a great deal of charm and warmth. She never paints anyone in broad strokes or with black and white, which would probably be impossible given the complexity of the issues she deals with. It's soon clear this is not a conventional story but a look at the situation of a people in a country rocked by war and with its old virtues challenged with the coming of democracy and the opening of attitudes to the West, both out in the open and underground. Main character 'Noqreh' however, seems like an irreversible and logical progression of women in this country, quietly but skillfully independent when and if she can be; one cannot be overtly progressive all the time, as tragic 'Mina' comes to learn.
The professionalism on display here is impressive, not the least of which Ebrahim Ghafori's soft and warm cinematography. The cast are astounding, with Agheleh Rezaie's 'Noqreh' being the obvious standout, beautiful, sad, curious and wanting but also, quietly, frightened. Abdolgani Yousefrazi is also a good turn as the devout Muslim disillusioned about the changes that have come to the population, though displaying an unwavering love to his family. For a film to make a fanatical Muslim sympathetic a lot of intelligence indeed has gone into the making of it all.
And this is evident throughout. Makhmalbaf initially seems like just a mouthpiece for moderate ideas to flow through but she is savvy enough to present btoh pros and cons for being so independent in a society still dominated by radical thought. That Makhmalbaf herself has become a hate target by radicals in the Muslim world proves her own point that women as treated so lowly they might as well not exist in Islamic countries at all.
But she often displays her more creative side, with such wonderfully cinematic moments as Noqreh's tense wanderings through a ruined palace or the sweeping panoramic shots that litter the film, from detailing bustling streets to the empty Afghan deserts.
Whatever smaller flaws there may be this still stands as a very strong and potent entry in world cinema and a powerful critical piece on the subjugation of women, as well as being a work of art in its own right.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
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