1. His films have always surpassed movies, overflowing the theater, and consciously joined the social struggle, joined the social action, and joined the demand for social change. His camera faces the suffering directly, and this suffering is not just a regional suffering, but the suffering of human beings and the suffering of the modern world that are both prosperous and damaged.
2. The choice of this film is certainly to share with you the wizards of Makemabuff, but also to choose a rare and original realistic film presentation. When we say it is realism, we not only tell the truth about it, but we also emphasize realism. It also means a social standpoint and a social commitment.
Today I will share with you the 2001 work of the famous Iranian director Mosen Makmabav-"Kandahar". This is a film that has gone through a long Odyssey trip at an international film festival and won the recognition and praise of many international A-level film festivals.
I think everyone may know that Moson Markemabuff and Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian director that we all know and love, were the two most important world-class directors together. It marks the occurrence of a new Iranian movie, or "New Wave of Iranian Movies". We can also use a literary term: the two of them are the "double peaks" of the "new Iranian film" or the "new wave of Iranian films".
But if you are familiar with Iranian movies and have seen a lot of films by Abbas Kiarostami and Makmabav, you will find that the two directors’ image styles, personal styles, and screen narrative styles are quite different, even It can be said to be quite different, it is difficult to juxtapose their two films to summarize things such as Iranian film aesthetics. In fact, this is exactly one of my intentions or aspirations in choosing Makmabuff and "Kandahar". One is that, first of all, I want to use the juxtaposition of these two Iranian film masters, the representative works of the two Iranian film masters, so that everyone can touch their films one after another, and share with you a kind of national culture, national style, social history and film. Thinking between.
And what I want to share with you is the personal story of Mawson Markemabuff and the legend of his life. I think you may have heard of this story. In his boyhood, Markemabuff was a juvenile activist who paid attention to society, intervened in social movements, and was even extremely radical. So when he was 17 years old, he He once participated in a Muslim underground organization to devote himself to opposing the brutal and barbaric rule of King Pahlavi backed by the U.S. government at that time. When he was 17 years old, after accidentally wounding and killing a policeman in an operation, he was arrested and put into jail. He experienced the kind of inhuman prison life that is difficult to reach in our imagination. When he was finally released, There was a certain change in his thinking. It was not retreat, fear, or compromise, but he began to draw a Lu Xun-like conclusion that was famous in the history of Chinese culture. He believed that it was more important than direct social and political resistance. What is more urgent is cultural reconstruction, cultural consciousness and cultural criticism.
So after four years of dark and cruel prison life, Makmabuff began to become an active filmmaker. From that time to today, it can be said that Makmabuff has become a very productive film director with a lot of creative work. So far, he has contributed to Iran, contributing 15 feature films, four documentaries and 28 books to the world. As a person who specializes in writing and teaching, I deeply know what 28 books mean, especially when these books are not popular writing, not writing about common sense, but full of originality, full of inquiry, full of thinking. Of the writings.
At the same time, Makmabuff’s work quickly attracted widespread international attention, but unlike Abbas Kiarostami, although the former’s films were once deeply loved and embraced by Iranian audiences, But his films are more at international film festivals, and more are in Europe rich in film culture, and continue to be loved among people who use the taste of European art films from my standards, but the films of Markemabuff, Although he also experienced the journey of international film festivals and the praise of international film festivals, he has not only become an important film director in the local Iranian society, not only has become a film director loved by the audience, but his films have always surpassed the movies. , Overflowing the theater, consciously joined the social struggle, joined the social action, joined the demand for social change.
Therefore, the most prominent title that Makmabaf has won on the domestic and international stage in Iran, or the most prominent honor he has won, is not a great film director, but a realistic fighter. In other words, if we compare the film director to a poet who composes and narrates with light and shadow, then Markemabuff’s poems are war-songs and decisive. This resoluteness is manifested in the direct confrontation of reality, the consciousness of consciously assuming responsibility for reality, and the representation of a form of reproduction that is bold in reality and full of originality in movies.
Markemabuff also came to China, and was welcomed and embraced with passion by Chinese filmmakers and Chinese movie audiences. We search at will and find many interviews conducted by Chinese filmmakers during his visit to China. In these interviews, two sentences left a deep impression on me, one of which was the title of a famous interview called "Making a movie is to breathe." This sentence itself can be extended to countless layers of meaning, probably as a filmmaker, he would think that he said that making a movie is to breathe, which means that this kind of creation is a form of his life. Making movies is not a profession, but a way of living, and even the only way to live. But when we say that making a movie is to breathe, we can also understand that for Makmabuff, the movie is to break the closed doors and windows, break the prison walls, break the imprisonment, imprisonment, and the deprivation of the sky, let The possibility that people can breathe freely.
At the same time, I deeply feel that the story told by the legend of Makemabuff is truly conveyed. That is to say, Makemabuff is such a director. He is creating with his life, and creating himself has become the most important in his life. The real part. And another sentence expresses his film stance. This sentence says, "Although many people no longer believe it, I still believe that movies can change the world." It clarifies that Makemabuff is a world-class As a professional filmmaker, his love for film, his desire for film, everything he endowed in film, not only about film, not only about art, not only about aesthetics, and of course almost Sensory entertainment in the pure sense has nothing to do with it. What he appeals to is film as a way to change the world, a means to change society, and even a weapon to change society.
It is also in this sense that we can enter the world of "Kandahar", into Afghanistan under the Taliban rule led by the Canadian and Afghan journalist, which is almost like hell on earth. In the process of watching this movie, we almost experienced the most decisive, simplest, and most direct documentary-like experience. And this time the documentary is focused on wars, religious fundamentalism, conflicts, and outrageous atrocities in conflicts.
Markemabuff himself stated very clearly in the international screening of "Kandahar": "If you dream of getting those sweet and light lives, please leave now." So when we enter "Kandahar", enter In the movie world of Markemabuff, we will encounter many peculiar, beautiful and horrible movie moments and movie scenes here, but at the same time, it does not have any exotic, exotic, so-called world-oriented, Especially for the appeal of self-expression toward the Western world, there is no such thing as a single thought. His camera faces the suffering directly, and this suffering is not just a regional suffering, but the suffering of human beings and the suffering of the modern world that are both prosperous and damaged.
Perhaps everyone is already very familiar with another important story of the Makkemabuff legend, which is the "Makkemabuff House", or "The Movie World of the Makkemabuff Family". The story itself will probably resonate with many friends who have entered the age of giving birth or raising children. As a film director, Makhmabha received the participation and support of his entire family in his film production. As an Iranian society which is still deeply influenced by Islam, especially Islamic fundamentalism, to some extent, The maverick of Markemabuff is that he and his wife are not only married because of love, but they are always partners in work, creation and social struggle.
A specific moment became the turning point of this legend and created a world-class miracle. When Markemabuff’s son began to enter the school education system, especially when the eldest daughter also began to enter elementary education, he and the vast majority of them must send their children into the school according to social regulations. Like parents in the elementary education system, they felt tremendous pressure, anxiety, and anger. They are not satisfied with this kind of education system, and face their children's apparent distortion in this kind of system, or the process of being rewritten by a tangible or intangible violence. In order to deal with it, the Makmabuffs decided: We will educate the children by ourselves. We do not send our children to an education system like the meat grinder shown in the movie "The Lost Wall". So they decided to establish the Makemabuff House, also called the Makemabuff School. He hopes to educate his children with his friends without having to let the children accept the devastation of the extremely unsound education system in Iran at that time.
As a result, the education plan of the Markemabuff School was quickly aborted, or it was a huge success in unexpected ways. It is that all children follow the creation of Makemabuff and experience extraordinary and eclectic film education. In this "movie education", Markemabuff clearly stated that no textbook on making movies is effective, because there is no creative method that can be applied to every director. A director must create his own The method, a director has to find his own method. So in the following ten years, a series of miracles happened.
His son eventually grew up to become a famous Iranian cinematographer. Soon after, his wife independently directed and produced her own "Trilogy of Women". But the most talked about is his eldest daughter Samila Makmabuff, who shocked the world with the movies "Apple" and "Blackboard" when she was 19 years old. This beautiful, young Iranian girl has become the new star in the most compelling movie world, the most talented young film director. Soon after, her film "5pm" won the grand prize of the International A-Class Film Festival. This film was recognized as the representative of the highest achievements of Iranian film art and regarded as one of the most important film works of that era. Many of the next tidbits are also very interesting. For example, his 11-year-old daughter has made her debut, a short film, and this short film has also begun to win her a lot of reputation on the journey of international film festivals.
Probably there is no other blood family in the world that has shown such a dense film talent, and completely conquered the world with their works themselves. What’s more interesting is that between husband and wife, between daughter and father, between daughter and mother, their works do not have any similarities or similarities in style, and they do not have any direct reference to each other, let alone Talk about the traces of plagiarism. In other words, what they showed was a kind of original film talent. But among the films made by this family, the only consistent thing is the ability to face reality and to perceive and capture reality keenly.
In the last period, we basically used to discuss the people of Makemabuff, his film choices, and his social and political choices, and discuss the legend of Makemabuff’s house. In fact, if I choose solely from the perspective of movies, I might choose the works of Makmabav’s daughter Samila Makmabav, such as "Blackboard" as my example. I also love it very much. This brilliant film made by this 19-year-old girl, but I finally chose "Kandahar". Because, in my opinion, the film shot at the beginning of this century seems to have a particularly real sense of the moment today. When we watched this film again today, what we felt was not a historical testimony, but a realistic inquiry or a call to reality.
If you watch it, you will find this is a peculiar movie. I say that it is peculiar because it is viewed intuitively. This movie looks like a quasi-documentary, or it is a feature film with sufficient recording style, but at the same time, such a film has a distinctive recording style and recording characteristics. The practice of not deliberately weaving the scene that appears in front of the camera into a dramatic story, weaving in the chain of fate of the protagonist, combined with the use of a distinct narrative motif.
An important plot motive, or camera, is set up in this film, that is, it sets the heroine to be a Canadian and Afghan female journalist. In order to escape religious and political persecution, she traveled across oceans and immigrated to North America. , And in the context, it lets us know that when she emigrated that year, she left her sister with a certain kind of determination and even cruelty. At this time, she received a letter from her sister, who told her that she would be in a Suicide at a certain moment. So this guilty sister at such a moment of countdown to death, she decided that even if she paid an extremely painful price, she would still return to her home country, she must find her sister, she must stop her death, she must meet her again, and Take her away from the place under the rule of the Taliban, where Muslim fundamentalism has completely irrationally separated from the original religious trajectory, and she must rescue her sister from war and death.
Taking such an action as an opportunity, the film "naturally" formed a traditional narrative motif or a mythic motif. The first is "finding". Everyone knows that all folk tales must contain a setting, that is, at the beginning of the story, an important character or an important object disappears and disappears, so the protagonist appears on the scene to look for it, to bring it back, so he is looking for The theme is the oldest narrative motif, and it is also a mythical motif. Because the search for this treasure and this specific person is at the same time the protagonist’s adult style and at the same time the most important moment in the protagonist’s life.
In the space of this movie, the real social scene is reproduced. So it inevitably fulfills several obligations, that is, for people outside this space, it is not only a display, but also a summoning and coercion, called "Did you see it? Do you know it?" What have you done for the reality of this kind of suffering?” For people in this kind of scene and this state, it is also a kind of compulsion. It forces you to face the suffering directly. It forces you to ask yourself: I am and this suffering. What is the connection? What can I do? What should I do? What have i done? So I said, motivated by the journey of this female reporter from Canada to find and save her sister, the film shows what we have witnessed, witnessed and forced us to question ourselves and force us to share with our own moral conscience. , Amid wars, religious fundamentalism, Afghanistan at the beginning of a miserable century.
When it comes to this, we can have another set of correspondences. In addition to those Chinese commercial movies that experience no man’s land, we can also compare those Hollywood blockbusters about the war in Afghanistan, and even the best movies that include Oscars—they are the same. It presents Afghanistan as a kind of "empty" space in which the US military operates in isolation and helpless. Except for the enemy, there is no real Afghans, the lives of Afghans, and the Afghan community full of Afghan space.
Come back to the story. Under the guidance of female reporters, we will set foot on such a suffering land in Afghanistan, and walk through this land, which is the main body of the story of "Kandahar". Many film reviews and many researchers have pointed out that in this film, a very important angle is also invaluable for Mark Marbaff as an important director in Asia, as a mythological search for the subject. , He chose a female protagonist.
Everyone will understand after a little recollection that what the so-called folktale emphasizes is that Ivan set out to find the Holy Grail, Ivan set out to rescue the princess, Ivan set out to defeat foreign invaders, and Ivan set out to search for distant treasures. The so-called "Ivan" is pre-set as a man at any time, or all stories about growth are directly locked on the life of a male protagonist. In this film, it is obviously intentional. Make Marbuff choose a woman, choose a woman to search for and redeem another woman, and save her story at all costs. This led to the rejection and resolute denial of the moral conservatism and powerful patriarchal mechanism of Islamic fundamentalism that Makmarbhaf and his whole family shared.
Therefore, many researchers will point out that during this trip, Makmarbhav consciously designed an action repetition for the character, that is, the heroine stepped on the Taliban land, and her first action was to lift the blindfold The veil on her head (the Chinese translation specifically refers to this veil as Buga), and when the story ends, she lifts Buga again. Then such a simple action design itself successfully completes a visual expression, that is, when the heroine reveals Buga, it is taken as a subjective point of view. The sudden blue sky and yellow sand, the sunny world seems to be a A brand new face is coming. But at the same time, the action itself makes the anxiety, pain, and hope written on the heroine's face and in her eyes be seen by us.
By revealing her own face twice, the heroine who showed her own gaze, to recognize those women who have always been after Buga, have no chance to be seen by us, and have no chance to look at the world without being blocked by Buga. Life experience. Let me tell you frankly, that is, here I have a greater respect for Mark Malbuff’s films, and at the same time I have a certain hesitation. It is in the West Asian region where wars are so dense and frequent, in such a region that is caught in the violent impact of various forces around the world because of oil contention, Macmaarbhav insists on his social justice and social progress. The concept of, makes me more respectful, but at the same time, I hesitate to say that in such an expression, he is unavoidable or has no time to reflect on the problems of the social progress theory itself.
This is one of the most prominent and most important elements in this film. It is the combination of recording style and mythological theme. At the same time, it is played by a female protagonist and assumed by a male. It is usually a male-only narrative. Location. And this narrative position itself has become a kind of social critical position of Markemalbaff, an intuitive presentation of a social critical posture. Because the heroine is not only the motive of action, but also the dominant motive of the camera. Like most movies, she actually acts as a functional first-person narrator. Because she is not only the center of narrative, she is also the center of camera viewing and the basis for the most important camera position selection. Because to some extent, we assume that the camera is the eyes of the heroine.
Therefore, in such a basic setting, the confirmation of the style, the director’s extremely clear, consistent, and stubbornly insistent film function thinking and positioning, the film is actually full of many spectacle scenes and paragraphs, but the director Refuse to present them as spectacles in any sense, and only regard them as a film reproduction of absurd but infinitely real real scenes recorded and captured under the recording style.
There are too many examples to discuss, and there are too many sufferings in the film. I just cite a typical example. Friends I think I’ve seen will never forget that the plane came in such a blue sky, and what was thrown down by the plane was a pair of prostheses carried by parachutes, and countless broken legs. The people in their hands rushed there as if they were welcoming the gods, competing for the aid materials that had fallen from the sky, which were obviously international organizations. So many people with broken arms and limbs constitute a hellish scene on earth, and its absurdity seems to remind us of a surreal religious scene. But Makmalbuff's processing does not give us any surreal perception. On the contrary, he just reminded that this is the disaster of "daily life" that has inevitably occurred in every area of the world where local wars have occurred since the Vietnam War, so it is that humanitarian landmine. It has two basic characteristics. One is that it does not use metal products, which makes mine clearance almost impossible. Another important transformation is that it is no longer a landmine detonated and a group of people fly in flesh and blood. On the contrary, a landmine kills and wounds. The force consists only in breaking a leg, a foot, or a pair of hands. So after every regional war, there will be countless disabled people with broken arms, legs and limbs left in this area.
What is even more terrifying is that this is definitely not just a warrior, not just a soldier, but countless civilians. Because in every war, the two sides will lay countless landmines for self-protection, and these landmines cannot be found and cleared after they retreat. So far, there are dozens of regions in the world, and international organizations still need to constantly try new technologies to complete mine clearance, in order to end the damage caused by landmines that have continued for decades after the war. When this landmine was invented, it was called a "humanitarian landmine" because it does not take human lives. But how ironic is that this kind of "humanitarian" landmines have continuously created wars in a peaceful environment for half a century, and wars in wars have continuously created the kind of hell shown in the film. , Surreal, religious scene.
There are too many similar details in the film, so we will not list them one by one, because I chose this film to share with you the prodigy of Make Ma Buff, the legend of Make Ma Buff, and I also want to Choose the presentation of a rare and original realistic film. When we say it is realism, we not only tell the truth about it, but we also emphasize realism. It also means a social standpoint and a social commitment.
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