Camden Movies: Pick of the Indies

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 24 July 2008

Pick of the Indies

BEAUTIFULLY shot and tackling a huge issue, Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame is a poignant story that tells of a childhood in Afghanistan.
Made by director Hana Makhmalbaf, she says she was inspired by a comment made by her father, the Iranian director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
He told her that the violence and terror that has racked Afghanistan would be marked indelibly on the landscape, that the mountains and hills, the ancient religious relics, would all look at the recent violence and cast its eyes downwards in shame.
Set in the town of Bamian, it shows what the bloody rule of the Taliban has done to the inhabitants.
The rulers had no respect for the history of the region and set about destroying two giant Buddhas that had been carved into cliffs above the town 2,000 years previously. Where they once stood is an ugly scar, a permanent reminder to the violence the regime inflicted.
We meet Baktay (Nikbakht Noruz), a girl who wishes to go to school but must over come the prejudice of her community and the poverty of her family. Her struggles are a microcosm of what Afghanistan faces: the need to return to a non-violent society after the scorched earth policies of the Taliban and a community that offers opportunity to all.
Baktay, above all, represents the innocence of youth facing the debilitating truth of the violent world of her fathers.

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