Kandahar

[Michael Brooke]

I've finally got round to reviewing Mohsen Makhmalbaf's flawed but fascinating <A HREF="http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/index.cgi?page=CinemaReview&id=66&story=2546">Kandahar</A> for <I>DVD Times</I> - by historical accident, the most timely and important release of the last few months, even though it offers little more than a glimpse of life in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

As usual, any comments, compliments, abuse etc. can be posted either under the review or here.

[Pentasa]

Just a side note here read in the paper today that The star of the critically acclaimed Iranian movie about Afghanistan called Kandahar has been unvieled as American Moslem assassin David Belfield - on the run from police in the US for 21 years

[Michael Brooke]

Which paper? Do you have a URL?

[rezabelady]

try http://www.imdb.com/StudioBrief/ or http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:ehSm2hLYgJM:www.americasnewspaper.com/left.shtml

[TimJBart]

why is it that every film you talk about i have never heard of!? Where do you get your film knowledge?

[Earl Jolly Brown]

from the Guardian


An actor in the acclaimed Iranian film Kandahar is an Islamic terrorist responsible for the assassination of a political dissident, it has been alleged. Officials in the US say the man credited in the film as Hassan Tantai is actually David Belfield, prime suspect in the murder of former Iranian diplomat Ali Akbar Tabatabai.
Tabatabai, a fierce critic of the Ayatollah Khomeini, was shot three times outside his home in Washington DC in July 1980. Belfield left the US for Iran immediately after the killing. According to Maryland state attorney Doug Gansler, the American-born Muslim was operating under orders from the Ayatollah's regime. "We are very confident that the man who appears in the film is indeed David Belfield," says Gansler. "He's an assassin and he's a terrorist."

Asked for a response, the film's director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, insisted: "I never ask those who act in my films what they've done before."

In a recent interview to promote Kandahar, 51-year-old Tantai admitted that he has assumed several identities over the past few decades, but added that: "this is not an uncommon phenomenon among Americans of my generation, the 60s generation."

In Kandahar, Tantai plays the role of a dedicated doctor who tends to sick Afghan women. Released last autumn, the film was praised for its timely insight into the oppressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Time magazine critic Richard Corliss recently named it his top film for 2001, while President Bush asked for a special screening in order to gain a better understanding of Afghan culture.

The victim's brother is now demanding that Kandahar be banned. "Considering that our nation is now mobilised to counter international terrorism [the prospect of] a fugitive for 21 years coming back to the US glamourised as a movie star is, to say the least, unsettling," says 71-year-old Mohammed Tabatabai. "Not seeing the movie is not any major cultural loss to anyone. It should be stopped."

[Idle Child]

oh dear. :(

due to current events, may the film be withdrawn? isn't the release in poor taste? (star being a fundmentalist wanted for assination and all?)

[Michael Brooke]

If you think <I>Kandahar</I> should be withdrawn for that reason, then you must also logically support a ban on Roman Polanski's films, since the situation is virtually identical. In fact, it's worse, since there's no doubt that Polanski is both a fugitive from justice (he'll be arrested as soon as he sets foot in the US) and a convicted child molester.

Personally, I think the extra-curricular activities of people who work on films should be entirely separate from the films themselves - otherwise you're setting off on a very slippery slope whose logical conclusion is that countless thousands of films get banned!