Title: In the Name of Afghanistan
Genre: Documentary
Year: 2003
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Rating: NR
Technical Notes:

A Brand-New Documentary. Remarkable and Timely.

This documentary begins with a verbal narrative of the "Coming of Islam" and the Taliban rule of the country of Afghanistan in 1996. The strict rules of the Taliban regime that severely impacted the day to day living of the Afghan people are explained in a clear, verbal narrative supported with stunning visual images.

The most publicized of these impositions, of course, were the "shariya" instructions for women - which included the famous burkhas they were required to wear. Additionally, the filmmakers explore the restrictions of movement imposed upon Afghan women: the enforcement of prayer in mosques only, the strict escort requirement for going out at night, and considerable other things that would mean fierce punishment of the Afghan women or their husbands, if the feared religious police found them in violation. Additional censors and cultural restrictions are explored, including the banning of picture display, and the outlawing of long hair, gambling, music, beard shaving, and dancing, especially at weddings.

We visit the classes in the madrassas in Pakistan where the Taliban studied among many other nationalities - Indians, Southern Arabians, and, of course, Pakistanis. We get insight into the fight for opening up oil trade routes and the strong Iranian opposition. A rare interview with Babar, the Pakistani general known as the Father of the Taliban, completes a look at the birth of the Taliban.

In 2000, the filmmakers entered Afghanistan, a country in which filming was strictly prohibited. Kabul was deserted. The Taliban assigned a driver and an interpreter to the producers and took them to the huge International Hotel where all foreign reporters stayed. They were the only ones there.

We follow them into the poppy fields where they speak with peasants about the opium production, without which Afghanistan would be unable to survive. Afghanistan is the largest opium producer in the world.

We encounter fascinating and heart-wrenching stories of the orthopedic center and the many land mine victims that it must treat. We see young children learning how to walk for the first time with a foot; the factories that produce the prosthetics; and the social atmosphere of victim helping victim that is so indicative of the warmth of relationships amidst such suffering and pain.

They were authorized to film the magnificent Bamiyan Buddha - the first Buddha to be built in the world, surrounded by niches carved with paintings from the 3rd-6th centuries. Imagine. Hundreds of pilgrims over centuries of time have come to pray here. And the rare pictures of the Hazara people in the lush Bamiyan Valley are gorgeous. A year later, when the filmmakers returned, they found two great holes in the rock face where the statues once stood.

Ultimately, this is a film about the preservation of culture in the face of destruction and hardship. A dramatic re-interpretation of the Taliban decision to burn all the films of the country shows a trick the Afghan filmmakers played on the "minister for the repression of vice and the protection of virtue", in order to preserve the films. Ten trucks of burning celluloid didn't touch the caves where the negatives were hidden. An amazing interview with the painter who demonstrates how he saved the works in the National Gallery, by painting watercolor over oil to preserve the taboo work, is demonstrative of the resolve and spirit of the Afghan people.

This masterful documentary concludes with a dramatic illustration of how Afghan artists, actors, and musicians managed to preserve the history and culture of the Afghan nation, in spite of the reign of terror.

This wouldn't be the first time that the artists of a nation have saved its soul. Russian writers, Czechoslovakian actors, French painters, and of course, the poets that Plato wanted to throw out of the Republic.

This documentary proudly belongs to that history.

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