Anticipation.
Had robust word of mouth from its travels on the festival circuit.
Enjoyment.
An interesting, high-stakes conceit that maybe isn't as revelatory as you think it might be.
In Retrospect.
It's message of endless cycles of tit-for-tat violence definitely leaves a mark.
Have you ever wondered who clears up all the mess made in war movies? And do those who are landed with that job get to cherrypick from the spoils? This strange documentary by Ibrahim Nash’at tackles that question from an odd remove, as he films members of the newly ascendent Taliban as they itemise the heavy ordinance, military transport and IT systems left behind by the American occupiers of Kabul’s onetime CIA stronghold, “Hollywood Gate”.
With its darkly ironic gaze, the film presents a key moment in the evolution of an insurgent militia as they are suddenly landed with a giant cachet of technology and weaponry that requires a little fixing before it’s battle-ready once more.
While there’s implicit condemnation of the US’s shoddy clean-up job, the Taliban themselves are presented as monstrous fundamentalists who are on constant look-out to enhance their methods of control.
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The film trains much of its focus on one commander, Mansour, who is driven by the chance to have a pop at northern neighbours, Tajikistan. He gloats about the extent to which he has oppressed members of his family, yet Nash’at is limited in how far through the looking glass he can actually go, as the majority of the subjects he captured on camera would like nothing more than to see this devil journalist dead. It’s a fascinating, chilling, if limited study of how the endless cycle of global warfare plays out.
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