picturing change and kandahar

The film itself was a nice change from the two films before it.  I found myself actually being able to follow a cohesive, yet admittedly somewhat boring, plot.  As the article states the there is little character development.  This I think shows the audience that like the characters Afghanistan is a blank slate, devoid of any real personality other than harshness and contempt for outsiders.  Because Afghanistan is a post colonial country having been invaded by the former Soviet Union and the United States it lacks a story of its own; that is at least in recent decades.

However, the country itself is quite breath taking.  From the mountain-chains to the architecture.  I feel that the director also honed in on the beauty of the women and children there as well, whom of course are made to cover this up.  A few shots stuck out where the camera focused in on the eyes of some of the children.  While beautiful they're eyes were also quite empty almost to say they had no story the simply were.   I think the same could be said of Afghanistan as a country.  Or at least that is what is being conveyed in this film. 

The men in the film, even the boys, are all trained to have women be subservient to them and are introduced to violence, real violence, at such a young age it's no wonder the second Nafas and the family she is traveling with are mugged right as they cross the Afghan border.  I would surmise that the effects of post colonialism have also devoid the people of Afghanistan of any substantial economy.  Hence, the peddling of rings snatched off of corpses and temporary prosthetic legs. 

The article speaks on behalf of using images as statistics, which although possible I don't think this film truly did.  Not that it wasn't moving at times and certainly did show the poverty, general safety and welfare of the Afghan citizens.  I'm not sure, to me it was just a story about a woman who probably shouldn't have left Canada.  As harsh as that might be Afghanistan it would seem is harsher.  So perhaps the directors goal was accomplished after all?