Kandahar

Kandahar was very effective in showing the viewer how it was to live life in Afghanistan.  I was actually very surprised to see the lack of emotion that Nafas had on her journey considering all of the crazy things she had seen.  It's crazy to see how everyone is so used to the horrible conditions portrayed in the movie and that those conditions are normal to some people in other parts of the world.  Even in Turtles Can Fly we see that people getting limbs blown off by land mines seems to be a normal occurrence in parts of the middle east.  The scene where all of the men were waiting to get prosthetic limbs from the red cross really struck a nerve with me because the were giving out plastic legs like it was candy.  The fact that the guy without a hand was trying to get legs for his "mother" but was really  probably going to sell them just goes to show how desperate the people really were.  Even the kid who guides Nafas shows a strong sense of desperation after he tries to sell the cadavers ring for $1 after Nafas just gave him $100 for guiding her to the doctor. I noticed that Nafas wasn't really that developed as a character in the movie and I think the director of the film takes the focus off of individuals on purpose to focus on everyday Afghani life.  It is a film about Afghani life in general, not an individual's life in Afghanistan.

In the article it says that none of the characters in the film are fully developed which I think goes to show that the focus is on Afghani life as a whole.  A common theme in the middle eastern films we have watched so far seems to be numbness.  The fact that the main characters, especially Nafas, are not fully developed just gives the film a sense of numbness.  The article also points out how how people are so hungry in Afghanistan that people actually will go to the Taliban for food and come out as soldiers.  This was very awakening to read because I feel as if the media demonizes these people as evil and makes it seem like they were born evil, but when you actually see life through their eyes you realize that things are not always what they seem.  When we are young we go to school and we are taught reading, math, and science.  When kids grow up in Afghanistan they learn how to use firearms, and memorize passages from the Q'ran.  I don't mean this as a blanket statement but I think it just goes to show that you are pretty much a product of the environment in which you are in.  If the average kid in America were born in Afghanistan they probably would learn the same things.  I think it's important for people to see this and realize that if you grew up in a place where you didn't know where your next meal was coming from or where you could get clean drinking water, you would probably do some pretty desperate things that you didn't even realize you were capable of doing.