|
|
Iran’s wonder girl
This is the golden age of Iranian cinema. Representing her country at the Montreal World Film Festival is 23 year-old Samira Makhmalbaf. She walks up to the stage to introduce her much acclaimed film, Panj-i-Asar (At Five in the Afternoon). “Thank you for watching my film” is all she says and walks away. Her fans are a bit disappointed. They would have liked to hear her experiences of filming the movie in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
In the press kit, instead of the usual synopsis of the film, we have been given a pre-recorded interview with Samira. A one-interview-fits-all approach will not do for me. I follow her as she walks out and ask her a couple of questions. She looks at me with her big, heavily made-up, expressive black eyes and says, “I don’t know what to say!” She is not shy, but perhaps she is not comfortable with English.
She is a petite, attractive young woman who can easily pass as a teenager. She is dressed in black pants and a top. Her hair is stylishly covered with a black scarf. Her hairline is exposed and a strand of hair is dangling on the side of her face, giving her a girlish look. But flipping through the pages of the pre-recorded interview, one finds there is nothing girlish about her comments. Her thoughts are mature and sophisticated.
“If America decides, using the pretext of September 11, to attack whatever part of the world it chooses, why shouldn’t a film-maker have the right to make films for the victims of expansionist policies, profiteering economics and cultural fanaticism? This film is not only about Afghanistan; it could very well have been set in Iran. The current situation in Afghanistan allows me to express myself more easily. What happens in my film could happen in numerous Asian countries,” reads a comment.
At the age of 18, Samira Makhmalbaf became the youngest director in the world to compete at Cannes, debuting with her film The Apple. In 2000, she won the Jury’s Special Prize for her film Blackboards. At Five in the Afternoon is the first film made about post-Taliban Afghanistan. The director counters the American propaganda that has helped create a stereotyped image of that nation
The woman sitting next to me in the audience interrupts me. “Last year we saw Road to Kandahar. That film was made by her father. It was very good. I hope this one is also as good.”
The Makhmalbafs are a family of film-makers. Joy of Madness by Hana Makhmalbaf, Samira’s 13-year-old younger sister, is also showing at the festival. Brother Maysam also has directorial credentials. Five in the Afternoon was awarded the Prix de Jury and the Ecumenical Prize at Cannes this year.
Samira is the daughter of renowned Iranian film-maker, writer and one time revolutionary, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Film-making is in her blood. At the age of seven she acted in her father’s film, The Cyclist. She learned the art of film-making working closely with him and acknowledges the help she receives from her father. Mohsen Makhmalbaf is a producer, director, scriptwriter and editor. How, then, can the daughter not be tempted to avail her father’s expertise?
The Makhamalbafs take cinema as a moral medium and use the language of art for searching and reflecting on social issues and politics as it affects people. Human life and dignity are their major concerns. In Joy of Madness, sister Hana says that she used “the camera as a pen.” The theme of the movie is fear of society. All her characters, from the mullah to the young woman, are afraid of the society they live in. It is a form of cultural terrorism that is unknown in the West.
Samira has made three feature films so far. She made her debut at Cannes in 1998 with her film, The Apple. At the age of 18, she became the youngest director in the world to compete at Cannes. The Apple is based on a true story of a man anxious to bring up his two daughters according to the teachings of the Holy Quran. To protect them from evil influences, he locks them up inside the house. In 2000, Samira won the Jury’s Special Prize for her film Blackboards. In Blackboards, the father and daughter team came up with an original idea of teachers in search of students. She also directed a segment of the film 09’11”01. It features a teacher trying to explain September 11 to children in Afghanistan.
At Five in the Afternoon is the first film made about post-Taliban Afghanistan. Samira counters the American propaganda that has helped create a stereotyped image of that nation.
“Several years ago the Americans made the movie Rambo about Afghanistan. Rambo arrives and rescues the country,” she says. This is the image of Afghanistan broadcast throughout the world. At Five in the Afternoon projects the real picture of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. It is a moving, educational and historical film. It is more a documentary than a dramatic production.
Samira feels the urgency to tell the world the true story. She finds the news snippets misleading.
“The role of mass media is first and foremost the expansion of world-wide ignorance,” she says. To this she adds, “The mass media bombards us with a single view, with clichés, and as news takes the place of analysis, little by little everyone starts to think like Bush.”
In At Five in the Afternoon, Samira takes over where her father Mohsen left off in The Road to Kandahar. Kandahar depicts the misery of the Afghan people during the Taliban’s rule. At Five in the Afternoon records their plight after the defeat of the Taliban. For the people of Afghanistan, there is no respite still from mental and physical suffering.
Schools have been reopened for girls. A young girl dreams of becoming the president of the country, but her father is against her going to school. “The women of Afghanistan seem more liberated by the new situation,” asserts Samira.
She treats all her characters with sympathy and understanding. She is not judgmental. “I have tried to understand both the father who is a supporter of the Taliban and their culture, and the girl who opposes that culture.”
Taliban ideology has become entrenched in the culture and traditions of Afghanistan. The Taliban may have gone, but their mentality lives on. The men in Afghanistan have not changed. You can change the government by force, but you cannot change people’s thinking and behaviour overnight.
The displaced refugees are returning to their homeland. Their country has become a vast desert of bombed out buildings. For the people of Afghanistan, there is only hunger, poverty, desperation and nowhere to go. Panj-i-Asar is an appropriate title. Asar is the time of zawal (decline) and Afghanistan seems to be in a permanent state of zawal. The title is derived from the poem about death by Spanish poet Lorca.
How did you like the movie? I asked the woman.
“The images are haunting, but it is too repetitive.”
|
|
