Review: Shadow of Afghanistan (2006/2012)

[Mark Leeper]

SHADOW OF AFGHANISTAN
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: This compelling documentary covers the
conflicts in Afghanistan over the two decades
from 1986 to 2006. It is the merging of two
documentaries after the makers of one of the movies
were killed while producing their film. SHADOW OF
AFGHANISTAN is at its best when it is showing the
destruction the wars did to the Afghan people
themselves. When the concentration moves to the
politics and the leaders, the discourse becomes a
little muddled and hard to follow. At times the
testimony of their experts seems rather arguable.
Still, this film concentrates on a world with which
United States policy is intimately connected, but a
world that remains largely unknown and misunderstood
by the American public. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4)
or 7/10

In 1987 two film crews independently came to Afghanistan to film
the turmoil going on in the country. One crew intended to focus on
the how the war with the Soviet Union was affecting lives of the
people. The other crew wanted to document the refugees from the
war. With a great deal of common interest the two documentaries
would overlap and later would be joined into a single documentary.
The resulting film tells the history of the fighting with first one
super power, the Soviet Union, and then, with very different goals,
the United States would send their military to Afghanistan and a
different war would begin. The war against the invading Soviets
would lead to civil war and to the rise of both Al Qaeda and the
Taliban. From there the history goes to the 9/11 attacks and the
United States' subsequent invasion. The period covered goes up to
shortly before the completion of the film in 2006.

THE SHADOW OF AFGHANISTAN became a history of not one or two but
several conflicts in Afghanistan. Before their death Lee Shapiro
and James Lindelof had examined the political turmoil with their
focus in large part on Wakil Akbarzai of the National Islamic Front
of Afghanistan who guides the crew, advises them on how to be
relatively, and much of the conflict is apparently seen through his
eyes. That same year under circumstances that are still not clear
Shapiro and Lindelof were caught in ambush and killed.

The footage they took documenting the lives of Afghans, some of it
very personal, came into the possession of the other film crew led
by Suzanne Bauman and Jim Burroughs. They incorporated that
footage into their own documentary and expanded it to give a quick
history going back to President Eisenhower's 1959 visit but really
concentrating on the previous twenty years of conflict in
Afghanistan, 1986 to 2006.

At times some of the expert testimony presented seems questionable.
Frequently the filmmakers will present the comments of Fatima
Gailani, the charismatic director of the Afghan Red Crescent. It
is her point of view that the threat posed by the Taliban is mostly
the result of the widespread illiteracy of the Afghan people. She
says that people accept the Taliban's interpretation of the Koran
because they are not literate and so cannot read the Koran for
their own interpretation. However, religious extremists exercise
great power in many places that have far more literate populaces.
It seems naive to assume that the power of the Taliban comes just
from the inability of the people to argue Koran with them.

The creation of this documentary was quite a feat and two
filmmakers died in the process of creating it. That dedication is
admirable. But the political case is muddled and could be put more
clearly and more cogently. So the film is far from ideal, but it
does present a lot of information that will be new to most of its
audience. I would rate SHADOW OF AFGHANISTAN a low +2 on the -4 to
+4 scale or 7/10. This film was completed in 2006 and became
available from Cinema Libre video on February 28, 2012.

Film Credits: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1521052/>


Mark R. Leeper
mle...@optonline.net
Copyright 2012 Mark R. Leeper