Kabul Express
We were on a mission to see Dhoom-2, D-2, DI-2, whatever they call it these days, probably to tout it as manna MI. We left our offices in time, checked with each other constantly, picked a restaurant close to it for dinner, finished our food at the right time and finally reached the theater 2 minutes before the movie started to realise that Dhoom2 was NOT PLAYING that day! So much for our planning :P. They were not running it that day to give room to a new movie Kabul Express that released this weekend.
With so much planning and almost no choice, we picked our tickets for Kabul Express and our journey from then on was eye-opening. We came out of the movie with a spinning mind and some of us came back with a different perspective on the happenings in Afghanistan, actually elsewhere too..
Kabul Express is about the journey 4 strangers(actually 5, but I feel the American had no part to play!) embark on, the poignant part being their composition. One of them was an Afghan, another a Taliban (a Pakistani settler) and the other two reporters from India and is a tale that talks about the current scenario of Afghanistan post-9/11, post Pakistan abandoning them. What makes the tale interesting is the different perspectives brought into the tale from it's protagonists. Here are a few things illustrated..
1) Not everybody from Talibans buys into it's ideals. They just consider themselves as a part of the army and follow what is told. Their aim is to have an intruder-free country.
2) There are a lot of Pakistani fighters in the Taliban.
3) Pakistan is caught in a weird web where it has to kill it's own citizens for its survival.
4) America sucking out oil from the territories it occupies replacing it with Coke and Pepsi :)
5) Mutual hatred between Taliban and the rest of Afghanistan and how ruthless and unforgiving they are towards each other.
6) How a town in Afghanistan lets of donkeys on the road with the hope that somebody will run them down after which they can stake a claim over the "precious" donkey and squeeze money from the offenders :D..Don't know if this is true, but I found it profoundly funny!!!
The ending was striking where a Pakistani soldier had to kill his own (a Pakistani in the Taliban army) under American pressure inspite of totally being against it clearly showing the pressure under which Pakistanis are in and the fact that American friendships last as long as they are in "their" favor. Kabul Express is really thought provoking. Go and watch it!
Btw, just saw Big Fish for the second time..While Kabul Express is a 'real-life' movie, Big Fish is really full of life. A movie about adding color to mundane life making it colorful and exciting for self and for everybody else :)
With so much planning and almost no choice, we picked our tickets for Kabul Express and our journey from then on was eye-opening. We came out of the movie with a spinning mind and some of us came back with a different perspective on the happenings in Afghanistan, actually elsewhere too..
Kabul Express is about the journey 4 strangers(actually 5, but I feel the American had no part to play!) embark on, the poignant part being their composition. One of them was an Afghan, another a Taliban (a Pakistani settler) and the other two reporters from India and is a tale that talks about the current scenario of Afghanistan post-9/11, post Pakistan abandoning them. What makes the tale interesting is the different perspectives brought into the tale from it's protagonists. Here are a few things illustrated..
1) Not everybody from Talibans buys into it's ideals. They just consider themselves as a part of the army and follow what is told. Their aim is to have an intruder-free country.
2) There are a lot of Pakistani fighters in the Taliban.
3) Pakistan is caught in a weird web where it has to kill it's own citizens for its survival.
4) America sucking out oil from the territories it occupies replacing it with Coke and Pepsi :)
5) Mutual hatred between Taliban and the rest of Afghanistan and how ruthless and unforgiving they are towards each other.
6) How a town in Afghanistan lets of donkeys on the road with the hope that somebody will run them down after which they can stake a claim over the "precious" donkey and squeeze money from the offenders :D..Don't know if this is true, but I found it profoundly funny!!!
The ending was striking where a Pakistani soldier had to kill his own (a Pakistani in the Taliban army) under American pressure inspite of totally being against it clearly showing the pressure under which Pakistanis are in and the fact that American friendships last as long as they are in "their" favor. Kabul Express is really thought provoking. Go and watch it!
Btw, just saw Big Fish for the second time..While Kabul Express is a 'real-life' movie, Big Fish is really full of life. A movie about adding color to mundane life making it colorful and exciting for self and for everybody else :)
posted by Vijay Challa | 7:16 AM
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