At Five in the Afternoon

In "At Five in the Afternoon", we follow the fortunes of a young woman in Afghanistan and her family. Nogreh is caught between two worlds. On the one hand, she attends a school where the teacher encourages girls to become doctors, engineers and even President. At the same time, Nogreh must wait until she steps out of her father's home before she lifts the veil of her burka and trades flat-soled shoes for high heels.

Nogreh is a very idealistic and ambitious young woman who emulates Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and dreams of being President of her own country some day. Yet she has been kept in a state of childlike naivety and ignorance about politics at home and abroad, due to the teachings of the Koran, Shariah (Islamic law) and the Taliban.

It is exciting to hear the young girls debate the status of women in their country. But the film is also sympathetic and understanding toward the old Afghanistan, symbolized by Nogreh's father. He bewails that "Blasphemy has overrun the city" and the world, as he knew it, has ceased to exist. To add pathos to the situation, he feels he can confide his feelings only to a dumb animal -- his donkey, who "knows nothing but hay".

The film's title echoes a recurring verse from Federico Garcia Lorca's poem, "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejia", about the goring of a bullfighter. Like Lorca's poem, "At Five in the Afternoon" is clouded over by a somber atmosphere of tragedy, death and despair. Yet the film remains remarkable for its astonishingly hopeful -- and indeed radical and revolutionary -- vision of hope for Afghanistan and indeed all of the Arab world.

This movie will be very moving, if you can sit still and take the opportunity to be drawn into the disturbing situation of a destroyed Kabul after 25 years of war. The story of Noqreh who dreams of becoming president while hiding her school attendance from her conservative father is very intense. Togehter with the sister-in-law and her sick child, Noqreh and her father are looking for a place to live in the ruins, they briefly stay in a crashed airplane and the bombed parliament building, before leaving the city for a more traditional country side... The camera observes, taking its time to capture the essence of the moments and the characters, including a staged debate between the two presidential candidates in the girl school. While the women start discovering some freedom (sun-umbrellas; dressing shoes), the men are struggling with keeping their faith in the new realities and everybody -including truck loads of returning refugees from Pakistan - is only trying to survive. At the moment, when a few helicopters flying over the head of the traveling family and they look up, I realized how deeply drawn I was into the movie and its very sad reality - so out of place seemed this modern technological machine compared to the mule-drawn carriage in a harsh landscape. Highly recommended, if you like Rohmer, Tarkowski or Mambety - 9 out of 10 stars!

I loved the characters of the movie - the people were really *there* you could see them. Even though I did not understand the language and the subtitles were in French (which, since I am not very proficient in French, I had trouble reading sufficiently fast), I did appreciate the emotions conveyed by the protagonists. This movie might be a bit slow for some people - however I found the timing just right. A minor gripe is the sound - the recording is not particularly good and a lot of scenes are completely silent, apart from the audible tape hiss. The result is a a minor loss in atmosphere (The crackling of the fire, the sputtering of the lamp, the shifting under the blanket, the shallow sleeping breath, all could have added a lot to the silent scenes, if they were added at the barely-audible level).

Apart from that, it is very good. Check it out.

Was not the sanction against Taliban led by the US to bring dawn into Afghanistan? Noqreh goes back and forth between her father, who believes neither education nor jobs are necessary for women, and the school, where teachers encourage female students to have any job, even the president.

Her family generously offers the place they live to the refugees coming back from Pakistan. Soon they have to go out from there, and without food, the dream of becoming the president fades out. Her white shoes become useless.

It seems the whole of the movie is a poem. That a high school girl dreams to become the president is a poem too. Maybe it is the best way to describe the world Noqreh lives in, which is at five in the afternoon, not in the morning.

How can the country, where just seeing the face of woman is sin, be open to the world? The country which was destroyed and lagged a long way behind the world by men, who are taught as superior creatures than women. Only the belief that God never dies supports them. Tough I have my belief as a Christian, I never want to shut myself away into the world of illusion.

Nogreh (Agheleh Rezaie) is a young woman living in a post-Taliban Afghanistan. She ultimately seeks to be educated, and finds solace in a girl school promoting new ideals and attitudes to women. Even though the Taliban have been defeated in the country, old ways are still present and burqa's are still preferred. She lives with her Conservative father and her sister-in-law Leylomah, who is searching for her missing husband who has not returned from war. Also, Leylomah has a baby who she is struggling to feed after her milk dries up. Amongst these struggles, Nogreh is running for class president and uses a Pakistani refugee to help with her ultimate goal which is to become President of Afghanistan.

The title comes from Federico Garcia Lorca's poem Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, which tells the story of a famous bullfighter tragically coming to an end in the ring. It is repeated several times by the Pakistani character named 'Poet' (Razi Mohebi). Mejias was a real and popular figure in Spain, who returned to bullfighting after a long spell out only to be killed. The character of Nogreh has high hopes after Afghanistan is rejuvinated only to be disappointed by a country set in its ways. Although it is clearly an improvement, attitudes to women are still the same and are seen as the inferior sex. This is most evident in the scene where she poses for photographs which she plans to use in her class president campaign, only to have the photographer laugh in her face upon discovering she wants to eventually run for President of the country. While Lorca's poem is tragic and romantic, At Five in the Afternoon is observant and naturalistic.

It would be easy, given the recent history of Afghanistan, to weave a tale of despair and woe, but director Samira Makhmalbaf tells a story that is full of hope. This hope comes from the character of Nogreh, who is brilliantly portrayed by Rezaie. Although she is ultimately looked down upon, and is scared of her father finding out about her radical attitudes, she is determined, and represents Makhmalbaf's hope of a new generation of women that will rise up and compete against the men who have dominated the country for years, and have ultimately led to the deaths of thousands of its inhabitants and many wars. The underlying messages aren't rubbed in your face; they are instead laid out in real situations. The film won Jury Prize at Cannes, and is a shining light in what will hopefully become a New Wave in Middle Eastern film-making - God knows they have stories to tell.

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