Kandahar Break

Thriller

Anchor Bay Entertainment

R4 DVD

Set in post-Russian Taliban Aghanistan, this independent British film shows many of the problems of such a backward area. Richard Lee is a mine clearance expert whose company has been hired by the Taliban government to clear the old Russian minefields. To help his small team he has hired Jamilah, an American-educated Pakistani woman, as interpreter. The variety of Islam practiced in these areas is one of the most severe and unreasoning. Richard finds this out when he is nearly shot after urinating within thirty metres of a tent that has a tribesman’s wife inside. When he hired Jamilah he also hired her brother and his wife, as a single woman if not accompanied by a relative will be stoned to death as a prostitute. Richard is falling in love with Jamilah, and she with him.

When her brother is blown up in a minefield Richard will not be allowed to continue to employ her. He visits her one night to plead with her to accompany him across the border to Pakistan but they are seen by an informer for the corrupt police chief, Ashiq Khan. He orders Jamilah to be stoned without benefit of a trial. The shariya court that will legalise her fate is a group of villagers who are being urged on by Ashiq Khan’s men. Richard rescues her, but she dies from her injuries. In retaliation Richard shoots Ashiq Khan accidentally. Now Ashiq Khan is after him. He must flee to Pakistan where the Pakistani military at least keeps the Taliban under control.

Unequipped, with no water, still being hunted by Ashiq Khan’s men, and no idea how he will cross the border, Richard looks like dying until he is saved by Omar, an “import – export” specialist – a smuggler. Omar’s group are no friends of the Taliban and guide Richard to safety. They get him across the border with bribes in the appropriate places, but just as Richard thinks he is free one of Ashiq Khan’s men who has been relentlessly following him shoots him.

The story will not end there.

David Whitney’s film shows many of the problems of living under a totalitarian regime run by corrupt power-hungry people. It is not critical of Islam, only of the people who use the religion for their own power. The people of Afghanistan are generally treated sympathetically. It is only the corrupt ones who do not show up well in the film – the police and their network of informants and thugs in this case. This problem of the corruption existing at the top is by no means unique to Afghanistan.

Whitney does not preach at us, though. He may highlight some of the more ridiculous elements of the culture as part of the story but that’s all. It is a harsh culture for a harsh country, as the wonderful cinematography of the mountain country shows. Love between members of different cultures in these circumstances will always be hard.

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