LOS ANGELES, United States — The world’s focus has shifted to the war in
Ukraine, but two major new documentaries aim to throw the spotlight back on
Afghanistan, and the people left behind by the
US’ rapid withdrawal last year.
اضافة اعلان
National
Geographic’s “Retrograde” follows an
Afghan general who tried in vain to hold
back the Taliban advance in 2021, while Netflix’s “In Her Hands” tells the
story of the country’s youngest woman mayor, who had to flee as the Islamists
took over.
“We’ve forgotten
about this story — when was the last time we discussed the war in Afghanistan,
or read an article about it?” said “Retrograde” director Matthew Heineman.
“Obviously there’s
still some coverage of it, but ... not that many people are talking about this
country that we left behind.”
Zarifa Ghafari, the
former mayor spotlighted by “In Her Hands,” told AFP that back under the
Taliban, Afghanistan is “the only country around the world nowadays where a
women can sell their body, their children, anything else, but are not able to
go to school”.
But at
international political meetings, “Afghanistan is out of those discussions”.
Both movies begin
in the months before the US withdrawal, as their subjects tried to build a
safer and more egalitarian future for their country.
The two films end
with their central characters forced to watch from abroad as the Taliban
rapidly erases all their work.
“Retrograde” began
as a documentary with rare inside access to US special forces.
In one early scene,
US troops are shown having to destroy — or retrograde — their equipment and
wastefully fire off excess ammunition that was sorely needed by their Afghan
allies.
After the Americans
left their base in Helmand, Afghan general
Sami Sadat agreed to let Heineman’s
cameras stay and follow him, as he took charge of the ultimately doomed effort
to stave off Taliban advances.
In one scene, Sadat
— stubbornly determined to rally his men to fight on as the situation crumbles
around them — chides his aide for bringing to his war office persistent reports
of nearby Afghan troops downing their weapons.
“Every neon sign
was saying ‘stop, give up, this is over,’ and he had this blind faith that
maybe, just maybe, if he held on to Lashkar Gah or Helmand, that they could
beat back the Taliban,” recalled Heineman.
Sadat eventually
had to flee, and the filmmakers shifted their lens again, to desperate scenes
at Kabul airport as Afghans fought for spaces on the last American planes out.
“It was one of the
most difficult things I’ve ever witnessed in my career,” added Heineman, who
was nominated for an Oscar for 2015’s “Cartel Land”.
“Discussions around
wars in public policy and foreign policy, they’re often talked about and
discussed without the human element,” said the director.
“One of the things
I’ve tried to do throughout my career is take these large, amorphous subjects
and put a human face to them.”
‘Murder’
Former mayor Ghafari had survived assassination attempts and seen her
father gunned down by the Taliban before she too left Afghanistan as the
Islamists moved in.
“Talking about that
moment, I’m still not able to stop crying ... it was something that I really
never wanted to do,” said Ghafari, who drew the Taliban’s ire by campaigning
for girls’ education after being appointed mayor of Maidan Shahr aged 24.
“I had some
personal responsibilities, especially after the murder of my dad ... to help
secure my family.”
The directors of
“In Her Hands,” which counts
Hillary Clinton among its executive producers,
returned to Afghanistan and filmed Ghafari’s former driver Massoum, now
unemployed and living under the Taliban.
In unsettling
scenes, he is seen bonding with the same fighters who once attacked the car in
which he was driving Ghafari.
“The story of
Massoum represents the story of all Afghanistan’s crisis ... why people are
feeling betrayed,” said Ghafari.
‘Share their pain’
Though the conflicts in Afghanistan and
Ukraine are vastly different in
nature, both films offer a cautionary tale about what can happen once the
West’s focus shifts.
“Obviously, that’s
happened throughout history, and will continue to happen long into the future.
And so what can we learn from this experience?” said Heineman.
Ghafari said:
“Whatever happens in Ukraine and happened in Ukraine, it’s the same thing that
we have been going through for like 60 years.
“The same thing, again and again. So we share their pain.”
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