Gabby Propato: Response to Kandahar

Firstly, I would like to say that this film was much easier to watch than the last two, if only because it had English throughout it. That being said, it was much harder to understand the true purpose of this film compared to the others. While watching I first noticed the monotonous tone of Nafas and wondered, why is someone so distraught over the possible and impending suicide of her sister, so...emotionless? Varzi's article however, sheds some light onto why Makhmalbaf's actors are so talentless (for lack of a better word). The numbness that is portrayed of not only Nafas but also the other characters in the film is almost a direct reflection of the true people of Afghanistan who are "numb and immobilized by the trauma of war." Perhaps this film would have been easier to connect with had these characters been easier to sympathize with; yet, as Americans, how could we possibly sympathize with them? Personally, I find that this might be difficult for many because I have a home, I do not have to fear walking out of my home, wonder when I will eat next or mistake hunger for a disease. In America, most of us to do not see this image of the world.

Varzi opens her article in saying that Afghanistan is a country without an image, and yet I feel that this film shows many images of this devastated part of the world. While these are not the images that we, in the US, are used to seeing - images of war and death - they give us as viewers an eye into the real Afghanistan. A world where children are taught to avoid the landmines so that they make keep their limbs, where you are photographed even though your face may be covered, where children go to school to learn about weaponry to receive food and are expelled if they cannot learn, where jewelry is taken from a skeleton to be sold for profit and food, where those who have fallen victims to a lost limb are running towards prosthetics that are just out of reach - this is the Afghanistan that the film shows us. As the article points out, the recorder that Nafas speaks into barely gives her, or any other Afghan, a voice. Afghanistan is not a country without image; it is a country without a voice. Unlike what Varzi says in the end, I do not believe that this film will be forgotten by those who view it. Makhmalbaf wanted to visually show the injustice of a world and the suffering faced by the Afghan people. As the article points out, statistics nor photographs will accurately portray the true tragedies faced by these people everyday. They are numb to the world in our American eyes and yet, they know nothing different. What I take from this film is that Afghanistan does not have a voice, but the US does not truly have eyes and Makhmalbaf has worked to give each exactly what it needs.