The subject of terrorism is, beyond any amplification, getting on the nerves of the people from not only the socio-political and scholarly circles, but also from the corridors of filmmaking and literature.
In the sphere of moviemaking, the exclusive impact of terrorism and cultural clash is that it persuaded several foreign producers and directors to depict the enigmatic situation of this war-torn region in their films, using the Indo-Pak-Afghan area, and taking native actors and other cinema-associated people on board.
The recent addition to this series is Millhouse Films’ ‘Kandahar Break’ that was produced by well-known British director David Whitney in cooperation with Hameed Sheikh from Pakistan.
Whitney, who was the winner of the Silver Award at the New York Film and Video Festival in 2005 for directing commercial and corporate films, wrote and directed ‘Kandahar’ himself; whereas the music was composed by Mark Adair, and Emma Jade Parker was the costume designer.
The film was shot in Pakistan (Kanak, Quetta and the Afghan border) as well as in Tunisia. Shaun Dooley, who won the RTS Northwest Award for Best Actor in multiple award-winning ‘The Mark of Cain’, played the lead role in ‘Kandahar’.
Female lead, Jamila, was played by Pakistani model Tatmainul Qulb, who made full use of her command over the Persian and Pashto languages, apart from Urdu and Punjabi.
Dean Andrews is another big name who demonstrated his admirable talent in the film, which won the Best Film Award at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, the Best Feature Film Award and the Best Actor Award (Dooley) at the New Port Film Festival and Glasgow Film Festival.
The crew comprises Sheikh, Mariya Khan, Rasheed Naz and Hidayat Saleem. The film is set in the locale of the Afghan city of Kandahar in the year 1999, two years before the 9/11 incident.
As the story unfolds, we come across a team of British mines clearance engineers who are working for the Taliban government in the sizzling deserts of the Southern Afghanistan, purging the vast area of the fatal mines installed there after decades of war, anarchy and conflict.
Amidst the Draconian laws of this extremist regime, one of the group member, Richard Lee (Dooley), an ex-British Army bomb disposal expert, falls in love with Jamila (Qulb), a local girl serving as an interpreter for them.
Ultimately, they are caught kissing and declared extremely sinful, according to the native law. Now embroiled in a deadly game of intrigue and betrayal, Lee’s phase of sufferings and trials starts and it provides a sensational thrill to the viewers.
Caught in a sinister situation, he has nothing else to do except escape on foot across the border into the nearby country of Pakistan, but during his journey, he is ambushed by a force of rebel guerrillas, enemies of the government, who agree to help him flee the vengeful Taliban.
The film comprises a domino of thrilling and sensational scenes soaked with suspense, intrigue and treachery. In the end, the question is that of survival and not of love.
The love affair is not a powerful force in the film, but stupidity that spurs the rise of guns. As an action hero who is on a tough job, the character of Lee miserably fails to win the sympathies of the viewers due to his selfishness and character’s weakness.
Within a few minutes, the protagonist falls prey to personal desires, setting aside his socio-moral and professional duties, and violates the fundamental laws of the government he and his colleagues have been allowed to work under, throwing the whole mine-clearing operation into the quagmire of danger and setting the lives of his friend, the woman he loves and himself at stake.
As a coward, he is desperate to manage his escape alone from the region without caring for others’ existence and the damage he does to the diplomatic and economic cooperation of the Western countries to Afghanistan.
Despite its limitations, the film is brilliantly shot extracting the real beauty out of the barren Afghan landscape and kudos goes to cinematographer Russell Nabb.
During shooting one day, the crew was attacked by armed militants and that terrible incident created the ambiance of a real battlefield for the film and its crew members, making ‘Kandahar’ unforgettable for all the members.
The film has been released in cinemas around the world simultaneously and it is available on DVD in Pakistan.
Khan, a young TV artist from Quetta, won Best Supporting Actress Award at a very early stage of her career.
Expressing her views, she said, “I have played a small but strong role. My character is of a Pakistani girl named Ayesha who is working with an Afghani non-governmental organisation as an interpreter. I am the only female actor from Quetta who has worked in an international project.”
Another impressive artist from Quetta, Saleem shared his experience saying, “It was really a great project for learning and acquiring experience from the senior director and actors from Britain. I found the director and all the British crew members very cooperative and accommodating. Whenever we made a mistake, they made us realise it without chiding us or attacking our self-respect. They taught us, and not dictated.”
Male lead, Dooley, was also happy to complete this venture and shared his initial fears saying, “The director contacted my agent, sent the script and said it would appeal to my sense of adventure. I was told we were going to film in Pakistan and Whitney wanted to meet me to chat about it. My initial thought was ‘don’t do it’, but when I got the script I couldn’t help feeling it was an idea of a brilliant power. However, it took me two weeks to decide whether to go or not.”
Whitney, who made his debut in the realm of feature films with this project, expressed his views saying, “It was really difficult to work in that kind of environment with 50-degree temperature. It was July and it is normally very hot in Pakistan. To find Pakistani cast, I got lined with Sheikh who introduced me to other actors. The performance of Pakistani actors was really marvellous. They surpassed all the leading actors in performance.”
Talking about his inspiration for choosing this subject for his film, he said, “I’ve always been fascinated by Afghanistan, even as a kid before the current war. In 2002, working for a TV programme I was able to travel there to film, and gained a real sense of adventure that never left my heart since. Unfortunately, during that period, an Afghan minister was assassinated at the Kabul airport and I had to get back to England with my cameramen. So we drove to Pakistan from Afghanistan and this idea of escape from Afghanistan was germinated from that incident.”
Commenting on the incident of firing on his Pakistani crewmen who got injured, he said, “I never wanted to stop, but I thought it would collapse immediately. That was the assumption.”
Commenting on this experience, Andrews said, “I think what first attracted me to the film was the location because it was obviously somewhere I had never been before, but somewhere I wanted to go. To put yourself in a position like that, there is a challenge in that for somebody like myself. The script was great and the character of Steve was fantastic. So I was more than happy with the script, character and the story, but I think the real job was going over to a country like Pakistan and putting yourself among people with a different culture.”
“I met with Whitney who had already been to Pakistan and stayed with a Pakistani family. He narrated stories of how welcoming they are. My interpretation was that you’re going into a war-torn country. I should have given a thought or two as I have two girls, but you don’t think of that when it’s your art and you have got a passion for it. The Pakistani crew and cast was all fantastic. It was a very organic process to see some of the things we saw and in the ingenuous way that they worked.”
Filming in the troubled mountains
