阿富汗字母

Post September 11, Mohsen Makhmalbaf tracks the children who do not attend school in the border villages between Iran and Afghanistan with his digital camera and questions why they are not being educated. He finds girls studying in UNICEF classes in one region. One of the girls is not willing to come out of her burqa despite the fact that she has run away from Afghanistan and the Taliban are not present here. She is more afraid of the horrifying god that the Taliban have created more than the Taliban. The teacher tries…


　　Director's commentary:


　　The Taliban was not a political regime in Afghanistan but they are still a culture. Bombarding can ruin a political regime but it cannot change a culture. You cannot free a woman whom is imprisoned in the burqa with a rocket. The Afghan girl needs education. She doesn’t know that she doesn’t know. She is imprisoned but she does not know that she is a prisoner of poverty, ignorance, prejudice, male chauvinism and superstition. 95% of the women and 80% of the men in Afghanistan did not have the chance to attend school even before the Taliban. The film seeks the lost key to be able to open the lock of the cultural problems of Afghanistan.


　　From the IMDB:


　　In 2002 about 3 million Afghan Refugee were living in Iran. From those about 700,000 were Afghan Children who were not allowed to go to Iranian schools because of their illegal status in Iran. After this movie was made, this subject became controversial and finally the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) passed a bill in which the Afghani children were allowed to go to school and it resulted in 500,000 kids getting education.

对伊斯兰文明的猎奇心和局外人来感受和怜悯。流落伊朗的阿富汗人，战争饥饿下对于知识的渴望和教育贫乏，镜头下的每个孩子都是嗷嗷待哺的雏鸟。不少的意外插曲：问小男孩神是什么，问战争是什么，喜欢美国，还是塔利班？问小女孩名字；蒙不蒙脸与宗教信仰。定格在那张摘下面纱洗脸的女孩面容上。