Afghan Star

Havana Marking's "Afghan Star," the winner of the 2009 Best Director and Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, is perhaps the most interesting look at a country we should, but probably don't, know a lot about. As the title suggests, this is a documentary about Afghanistan. Not about the current and never-ending war there, but, again as the title hints, a documentary regarding the "American Idol"-style television contest, "Afghan Star." To say this show is dangerous for the performers is an understatement, particularly for the female ones. One of them in particular, after she is voted off the show, strips her hair of its cover and dances around the stage for one last performance. The grin of a Westerner's face would likely fade as we then see the reaction of her countrymen and women. They are not pleased. "Afghanistan is an Islamic country," one of them says. Even though she is eliminated, we see her struggle to get back home and avoid the copious amount of threats from conservatives.

Saudi Arabia is an Islamic country, as well, and yet their definition of what is acceptable for women is radically conservative, even by Afghanistan's terms. Considering also that the world has gone through great liberalization in this past decade, it's stunning to see that in a part of the world where women not only studied with men but also sang rock music to shouting fans is now a region where young girls are shot in the head for attending school. Music is forbidden? Why? I can only tell through brief conversations that conservative Muslims believe music has traditionally been seen as distracting Muslims from their religious duties. But what about video games? Why is permissible to be distracted by them? This is something I will never be able to comprehend. But this is a documentary made for Westerners who would like to get up and one second cheer and another lecture. My reaction was similar to the one I had after watching Alison Klayman's "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry." While Westerners may be encouraged, what do most folks in Afghanistan and China have to say about these topics?

As hackneyed as it sounds, you're likely to learn a bit more about Afghan culture through this documentary than you do on the nightly news. Consider that the final contestants are from different ethnic groups--Hezara, Pashtun, and Tajik. I suspect the average viewer would be a bit surprised to see, frankly, what these folks look like. Some folks, particularly Westerners, might wonder why they don't look like Arabs, as it seems the rest of the world lumps Islamic countries all together into the Middle East. I remember several years ago, there was an English language learner at our school in the Czech Republic. She was from Kazakhstan (or one of the "-stans," I can't remember which), and a colleague of mine remarked that "she looks so Asian." I think Americans need to be aware that 1) Asia is not simply Japan, China and the Koreas, but a whole host of nations, and 2) we need to rethink how we "see" ethnicity. A person from Afghanistan most likely does not look too similar to a person from Oman. Regardless, there are stories here that need to be told. Those of people who hid radios during the Taliban rule. As the war begins to end (theoretically), it would be interesting and anxiety-inducing to see what kind of stories we can expect in the next documentaries about Afghanistan.
 



Movies, movies, theater, cinema, watch, watching, watches, view,  see, saw, celluloid, cine, cinema, cinematics, cinematograph, feature, film, flick, motion picture,moving picture, photoplay, picture, screenplay, show, silent*, silver screen, talkie,talking picture, videotape, Afghan, Afghan Star, Islam, controversial, Westerners, documentary, liberal, conservative,