I went to the premier screening at the American Embassy of Hashmat Khan’s new movie ‘Spring of Hope’ last night. The event started with a few welcome words from the American Embassy's cultural attaché and a welcome speech from the Afghan Ambassador, Dr. Rahim Shirzoy, showing his support for the film and the film maker's efforts. After the ambassador’s speech the film was shown which was followed by a question and answer session with the film maker.
The name of the film contained the word HOPE in it and it was being screened at the American embassy so I went with my hopes up. I had
It was a love story as you probably gathered but it also covered the Afghan war, ethnicity and language issues faced by Afghans in
I felt that there were many flaws in the film, like repetitive shots, cheesy lines and not all but some bad acting. A friend of mine who is not Afghan felt it was a bit of a self-indulgent, stereotyped 3 hour long epic for the director and that it was again not a great film to be seen by the international community as "the first commercial film to have been made in
Initially I left the cinema room disappointed but on reflection I realised that the film portrays the reality of
It is to be expected that the first film won’t be of great standards. Everyone has to make a start somewhere. I am sure
Hashmat Khan put a lot of work in to the film and we should be appreciative of that. He did something for our country and if we (Afghans) are not going to support him then how will he or any other film maker be able to make an improvement.
I am sure he wanted to screen an amazing film but reality is far from that. Financial, technical and many other obstacles that he explained in the question and answer session came in the way of that.
The film made me realise that we live in a dreamland and only want to see things beyond our expectations when it comes to
This film may not have met our expectations, but it still had some very interesting and informative bits. More importantly it showed that there are people working for the betterment of our country in all aspects of life. Their hard work and our support will one day give us the chance to see Afghan movies that are beyond our expectations.
The best part of the film for me was that it covered the effect of the war over the Afghan culture in such a beautiful manner. How war transformed the Afghan culture may not be an easy thing to explain to people but from now on I don’t have to, I can just show them the film but first, I need to buy a DVD copy of it!
Last but not least, I enjoyed the film and would like to say bravo to Hashmat Khan. I look forward to watching his next film which is about education.
Also many thanks to Farid Khan Popal (First Secretary, Political Affairs – Afghan Embassy
6 comments:
Hamdullah,
I was present at the movie premiere last night as well and enjoyed the film a lot because I did not go to watch the film with the 'hope' for fun or a big drama story line or a major suspense thriller. I looked at the movie in relation to what the message was which was tackled very well. The title suggested that its was about HOPE, which only could mean its for the future. You can not Hope to make any changes to History so just learn positive lessons from it. Each situation of the film had a moral story behind it.
I was surprised to hear people expected a Hollywood or Bollywood standard film. The way Hollywood shows high tech standards or suspense thrillers those situations happen in Western world and Bollywood shows the glamorous world of dance, drama, dreamland because that is what the country is about. That is what their people enjoy and understand as they live those lives.
This was an AFGHAN film. Afghanistan has been in War for many years. Despite its rich culture it has lost the glamour of its cities. Afghans have been deprived of peace and happiness for a long time. The question I have is why would an Afghan film show those fictional storylines?
But what made me sad was the way some of Afghans reacted to the movie, for example laughing at during scene of the mother crying for his son. It looked funny to many but the pain could only be realised if yourself or someone close to you have been through that situation. Also the laughter during the so called love scenes amazed me because it made me wonder if love only what is shown in Hollywood or Bollywood films? The love in this film was expressed beautifully through poetry and no one even mentioned that. Some valid points were raised; however, as usual they started with negative criticism.
I personally salute Hashmat Khan for having the courage of attempting to tackle an important issue such as ethnicity. Obviously there were limitations which he very clearly mentioned at the start but I felt really sad that his efforts were not appreciated either. His 3 or 4 years of effort was only criticised in a very negative way. People failed to appreciate those factors.
During the night Khalid Hossaini's Kite Runner was mentioned. When he attempted to make a so called Hollywood standard film with all the so called perfect ingredients of a high class film our own Afghans boycotted his film without even watching it and now its premiere has been postponed.
I wonder whether its jealousy or guilty conscious of some Afghans who fail to see or appreciate the hard work and true sincerity of some people towards our culture, or was it once again the PRIDE factor of some Afghans playing a game?
I was really surprised how everyone watched the movie so carefully that they picked on the small details of how some scenes were repeated but not a single person appreciated the message that although ethnicity division did happen within the Afghan community, deep down in those people's heart there was no particular hatred for each other. They failed to pickup the positive messages that the film was trying to portray.
We Afghans always waste time in talking about History and that is why our country is STILL behind. If we stop criticising the history and work together for the benefit of our beloved country MAYBE there is still SPRING OF HOPE.
I pray to Allah to give us (the Afghan Youth) the courage, determination and understanding to be able to bring this change towards a UNITED AFGHANISTAN so that one day there will be a PEACEFUL country called AFGHANISTAN.
I very much enjoyed the film and I am overwhelmingly positive about it. Constructive criticism is what makes an artist improve but it has to be accompanied by encouragement.
I agree with both of you!
wow! some great observations. i, too, enjoyed the film and look forward to seeing his next one. i agree with most of what was said above but would like to add that all feedback is good feedback :)
i would also like to congratulate Hashmat Khan on a great job with the film and applaud his rather impressive acting skills.
Hey,
In response to all the comments, I really enjoyed the movie. The portrayal of the two main characters, Bashir and the main character, I forgot his name, was very well-made. The viewer could understand their feelings and their sorrow. I think the main thing to reemmber about this movie is how the war affected families. How so many people suffered indirectly from it. There were so many opportunities to see that in the movie, through the suffering of parents for their sons who went to war, or through the love story. I really liked the end of the movie, which expressed how so many people were tired of the war. The scenes with Bashir saying that he appreciated the winter because it was the only time they didnt fight and the scene where the main character was digging his gun in the snow were very meaningful.
I also think that with this movie Hashmat Khan wanted to show how different ethnic groups were set up against each other; how alot of hatred occurred due to misunderstandings. We should keep this in mind for the future of Afghanistan and try not to be fooled once more into distinguishing between different ethnic groups.
Finally, some improvements could have been made. Maybe by trying to make the movie more emotional, by going deeper into the feelings and emotions of certain characters, so that more people can identify themselves to the characters.
But overall, I really appreciated the work, both with regards to the storyline and the quality of the movie.
During his speech, Dr Rahim Sherzoy (Ambassador of Afghanistan)praised Hashmat Khan for his professionalism. I considered that no more than just a routine nice gesture talk. However, once the movie was played it didn't take me long to realise that the words used in the speech were infact a true reflection of Hashmat Khan's remarkable talent in film making. The movie very much manifested the reality of the last 30 years of Afghan society in a well defined manner. What made me appreciate the movie more was the way the unfolding of the two main idealogies (Communism & Islam) was shown, although I would've liked to see more about the way the communists operated at the time & the reaction of ordinary citizens.
The quality of acting was also very good. I was especially impressed by the person who played (Bashir) in the movie, I thought his acting was excellent. And since the movie has a clear message it reinforces the fact that there was lots of research & hard work that was conducted beforehand.
Finally, I would just like to congratulate Hashmat Khan & his team for making such a wondeful movie & wish them lots of success in the future.
in afghans are all in love they dont even know what they are in love for they copy the film from bollywood and bollywood copy from hollywood
Post a Comment