Shadow of Afghanistan
Powerful documentary introduces the nation behind the headlines

On one hand, I often found Shadow of Afghanistan to be a bit unformed and chaotic. Its narrative structure can be a bit disjointed; Its timeline is too long, the subject matter too enormous. I'm trying to think how I can summarize the story, the through line that pulls us to the film's harrowing conclusion. It's difficult.

On the other hand, given the film's subject matter — 20 plus years of a country's history when ravished by endless war — it is perhaps only natural that what emerges is, by necessity, a bit unformed and chaotic. You shoot as you can, record as you can, and hope your luck won't run out this time. In fact, the film is actually an uneasy blending of footage recorded by two teams of journalists, each working separately. Two members of one team were killed pursuing their story, and it is a film that the surviving team risked their lives to complete. So I'm not really comfortable criticizing whatever I think the film might be lacking, especially when what IS on screen is more than plenty to convey the point

I don't know what prompted the filmmakers in their initial trips to Afghanistan, but the result of their efforts is a testament to the stunning resilience of the people of Afghanistan, so many of whom have never known a time when they weren't fighting and being killed for the political gain of some other country or faction. In the 1970s they saw the meddling of the Soviet Union in their internal politics, followed by invasion in 1979. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union and the U.S. turned the country into a bloody front in the "Cold War," the earth is salted with land mines, maiming and killing thousands, many of them children. The footage of young frail children, arms and legs missing, faces swollen and deformed, are heartbreaking. Yet other Afghan children, prompted by elders, turn it into a game. Holding one leg up behind them, they play a roughhouse version of last man standing. Hopping and shoving, they try to knock other children down, and just as important find that they are, themselves, not as helpless as they appear. The game symbolizes that even a wounded Afghan can continue to fight against the invaders.

Just as heartbreaking for me was when a Soviet soldier explains his country's mission in Afghanistan. You've heard his explanation a dozen times before. It is almost verbatim what so many US soldiers have expressed on the evening news time and again: we're just here to help, we're here to stabilize the country so they can form a government (friendly to Soviet interests, of course) that works for them.

At the end of the decade, the Soviets retreat, and the US loses interest in post cold war Afghanistan. Years of civil war follows, ending with the emergence of the Taliban in the mid '90s. They murder thousands more and turn the country into the virtual poster child of what Islam is in the eyes of most Americans: strict insane unreasoning fundamentalism Yet the US at first offers no real objection to the Taliban, which is supported by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, all considered allies of US interests.

Through it all, co-filmmakers Jim Burroughs and Suzanne Baumann build a portrait of the people that continually had me shaking my head in amazement. Whether offering hospitality to journalists in decidedly humble living quarters, heading out to engage soviets with bargain basement weaponry or, in the case of their guide, Wakil Akbarzai, telling the story of his people, the courage of the people defies belief. There is a scene near the end I found especially poignant; a young boy of what I guessed to be about ten or eleven, speaking with the worldly gravitas of someone in his 30s. That interview followed almost immediately after a shot of the US raising a flag, presided over by a couple of baby-faced American soldiers. They've been through basic and have now arrived to show the Afghans a little something about war. Irony: definition of.

It's difficult for me to review this film with imposing my view point over much. This review is, I think, much more political than the message contained in Shadow of Afghanistan. Burroughs and Baumann, I'm guessing, are less interested in politics than in putting a human face on the people who have paid such a horrendous societal, cultural and human price for our cynical chessboard view of the world. Millions have died already in the playing of that game. The least we can do, the filmmakers argue, is to take a good honest look at the people we've been so willing to write off as pawns. And they are right. It's not too much to ask at all.