Kabul Express
A film portrays the drama of war correspondence
By Jasmeet Singh
I saw this movie today...
Kabul Express is about director Kabir Khan's own experience of being a war correspondent. The film is an adventure thriller that tells a tale of five people of four different nationalities: two Indian television war correspondents (John Abrahim and Arshad Warsi), an American journalist ( Linda Arsenio ) for Reuters, a Pakistani ( Salman Shahid ) who fought for the Taliban, and an Afghan ( Hanif Hum Ghum ).
Abrahim and Warsi land in Kabul to find themselves in the middle of a war-torn heaven, a gorgeous country devastated by war. The scene is post-9/11 Afghanistan. The film dwells on some clichés, one of which is that Afghans love Indians and Hindi cinema . This is reiterated when an Afghan warlord, on discovering that Abrahim and Warsi are from India, starts to count the names of all the Indian actors he knows and then orders a tank to take them to Kabul, to which Warsi responds "Don't they have taxis here?"
The second cliché is that Pakistanis and Afghans hate one another. They keep arguing about who actually started the war, which has now torn Afghanistan apart. Three, no matter how much they have fought each other, they have one common enemy - America. In one scene the American planes bomb any vehicle they see at night. In another, a truck full of Pepsi cans is bombed. The two Indians debate whether it's Pepsi or Coke. They decide to ask the American reporter, who in turn replies that she doesn't drink either.
____________________________
It contains some truth about the tribal society that
Afghanistan is even today.
____________________________
There are moments that show the commonalities shared by all South Asians , like the Pakistani's fondness for old Hindi movie songs and the man's longing to meet his daughter who lives in a nearby village. But it also contains some truth about the tribal society that Afghanistan is even today. Two Taliban men are caught while trying to escape towards the Pakistani border and are beaten to death in full public view. I was particularly intrigued to see the shot where the local Afghans are beating the two Taliban men. Both the Indian and American correspondents are advised to take photographs and capture the scene on video camera. They start with enthusiasm but are compelled to think about what they are capturing. They realize they are making money out of somebody else's misfortune... and in this case the naked dance of somebody's death while their blood-drenched bodies are being kicked and trampled upon even further. I can relate to this. As a journalist myself, at times I'm compelled to examine whether what I am doing will change a person's situation for the better or whether I am just erotizing his or her misery and poverty. It is a line as delicate as the line between erotica and vulgarity. If crossed, it is called photo pornography.
Back to the movie itself, I think Kabul Express is movie worth watching if one is interested in seeing Afghanistan's landscape. Apparently the crew received death threats from the Taliban while they were shooting, but the Afghan government provided tight security and the movie was completed in 45 days. The New York Times calls it a black comedy , but for me it's realistic comedy wherever it's sprinkled.
This
website: Copyright © 2007
Dream World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved.
The opinions expressed in Urban Mozaik Magazine are not necessarily
those of Urban Mozaik Magazine and the publisher cannot be held responsible
for them. This website/publication, in whole or in part, may not be
reproduced without written permission from the publisher.
