Prompted by Jason Di Rosso's (good) interview with auteur/star Shahrbanoo Sadat. Afghanistan's first rom-com! Di Rosso said it was made in the style of Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally... (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993)). Sadat was glad he noticed and said it was mostly shot in Germany; the footage of actual events in Kabul was archival. In a couple of sittings.
The setup has Sadat working the camera for some soft women's-interest TV shows but dying to get out and do some real journalism. Anwar Hashimi is the veteran interviewer who is saddled with her when he interviews a Taliban commander. Their initial interactions are sweetly comedic but at some point things get disjointed and the flow of time becomes difficult to track; why, for instance, do they go for a meal together? The romantic aspect is complicated by her being married but separated, and if I followed correctly, him being married (with children) throughout. This is perhaps a subtle reinforcement of the title of the movie, a theme that is made overt in a series of effective voxpops. (Her husband is a grotesque.) The ending seems to flail around, looking for a place to land.
By far the best scenes were between Sadat and her girlfriends: she really lit up.
Peter Bradshaw at the Berlin Film Festival: four stars. Casablanca (1942).
