Kandahar

Starring: Niloufar Pazira, Hassan Tantai

RS: Not Rated Average User Rating: 4of 4 Stars

2001 Drama

Kandahar, from Iranian writer-director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, cuts right to the heart of today's war headlines. This fact-based film tells the story of Nafas (Niloufar Pazira), a journalist who fled Afghanistan for Canada as a child. Now the English-speaking Nefas must return in secret to her Taliban-controlled home in Kandahar to save her sister, who has lost both legs in a land-mine explosion and has sent a letter threatening to kill herself during the solar eclipse, just three days away. Makhmalbaf uses the odyssey of Nefas to reflect poetically and forcefully on the subjugation of women - covered head to toe in burkas - the crippling of people by mines (prosthetic limbs are dropped by parachute), and the tragic outcry of a nation in hell. You won't forget this film - it's devastating.

PETER TRAVERS
(RS 888- Jan. 31, 2002)