Reality check for Cannes crowd as film highlights Afghan plight

THE continuing plight of Afghanistan, with its legions of homeless returnees and lingering memories of the Taliban, sent a sudden chill across the Cannes movie extravaganza, after the premiere of a film

By far the youngest of the 20 directors competing for Cannes' coveted Palme d'Or, Makhmalbaf's almost documentary film was shot in the last months of 2002, as a million refugees poured into the devastated land, only to find their homes in ruins and little to eat or drink.

"I wanted to show reality, not the clichés on television saying that the US went to Afghanistan and rescued the people from the Taliban, that the US did a Rambo," she said at a news conference on the film.

"When I went there it just wasn't like that."

Shot with Kabul residents playing the lead and minor roles, Makhmalbaf's At Five in the Afternoon is the first feature made after the fall of the Taliban. It won a rare round of applause from critics at its debut.

The film centres on the plight of women in Afghanistan, but the failure of the West to alleviate the country's misery also stands out like a sore.

As the occasional helicopter or fighter plane passes overhead, the film follows the footsteps of Nogreh, a young independent-minded woman of 23 the same age as the director and her fundamentalist father, who cannot bear to see a woman's face unveiled.

"Though the Taliban have gone, their ideas are anchored in people's minds, in their traditions and culture," said the Iranian director, who won a special prize at Cannes in 2000 for Blackboards, and is the daughter of top Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

As Nogreh, wrapped in an all-covering blue burqa veil, secretly slips off to school in high-heeled shoes and begins to nurture a dream of one day becoming president, her father finds the irreligious "blasphemy" of Kabul too much to bear.

With his son reported dead in a landmine blast, and his daughter-in-law struggling to keep a newborn alive, the old man orders the women to exit the city. So off they go, finding survival more difficult by the day as their trail leads further and further into the wilderness.

"There is still a big difference between men and women in Afghanistan," said Makhmalbaf, who based her dialogues on real speech overheard in the street, taking inspiration from chance encounters. "The idea of the Taliban is still alive. But women are fighting. In their schools they want to change."

Asked whether it was harder for a woman to be president of Iran or a film-maker, she said "Harder to be president".

And would she like to be president of Iran?

"No! Too many problems. I'd feel too much responsibility, and I wouldn't be able to do anything," she said.

Afghanistan will make movie history in Cannes with a debut feature at the film festival's Director's Fortnight Sedigh Barmak's Osama, which is also about women, but this time under the Taliban.