PANJ É ASR (At Five in the Afternoon, 2004) *** Islamic feminism probably seems like something of a long shot, but it's an integral element of our only hope. Their only hope, the only hope. Samira Makhmalbaf's tale of contemporary Afghanistan is more enlightening than entertaining, more depressing than uplifting, and supremely poetic in a stark and barren desert sense. There is no hope, she doesn't even bother to conclude. Why conclude, what will that do? The subterranean realities of the Taliban have always been too terrible and impossible to imagine, but they get a little bit closer when they're in your face. They're relevant for that reason, in ways that politics per sé is not: the ignorance of everyone involved of what their leadership could possibly be thinking or trying to do, and even who or what constitutes the leadership, is telling, but no more so than the tale of a deprived and hard working family moving from ruin to ruin, half a step ahead of the only kind of deluge to be found in a desert. It's not a culture that speaks clearly to me-basically I figure that anyone who doesn't like dogs is headed in the wrong direction-but that's very different than saying that I can't identify with the characters in any way, or that I hope what is best in them is also reflected in me, and in some way that includes even the devout nature of the religious nuts. You can't look at this film and figure a way out any more than diplomats can look at reality on the ground and tie a string around it. It's only clear that the Taliban cannot be returned to power, and also that shooting people isn't the answer. What about those helicopters flying around? How much food could you buy instead of that? We're not talking about ideologues here, for the most part, we're talking about people for whom the term “daily bread” is both central and aspirational. That's the only starting point, and it's only a starting point. It's easier from here, but we do have to have hope for them or no one here will at all.
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