VIFF Review: Kabul Transit

Kabul Transit is an unguided look at Afghanistan's capital in 2003. The film is a patchwork of fragments, views of the various parts of the city and various people from money changers to kite fighters to female university students to Canadian soldiers. There's no narrative thread or history lesson attached, and while I appreciate seeing a view of Afghanistan with no interpretation attached I left wanting something more.

What was the filmmaker saying? I don't buy the "no-agenda" line, simply editing a film lends it subjectivity, a point of view. What you choose to film and what you leave out says something.

It didn't help matters that the film was played at the wrong speed, so the visuals and audio were a bit garbled.

The fragments don't add up to any sort of narrative which lends a quality of timelessness to the film; there's no story arc, it could go on forever or end at any minute. Call me traditional but this made me uneasy. And it made a friend of mine fall asleep midway through the film. That said, the ending made up for everything, it was so beautiful and haunting. Scenes of the demolished Russian Cultural Centre with people scavenging rolls of film out of the rubble was overlaid with images from the destroyed films. Opulent images of that very theatre full of well dressed, unveiled people - they looked so happy - it seemed like another world.