(Shock)

Even in the most intractable of wars, signs of hope can be found

Brisbane-born film-maker Dennis O’Rourke often takes his ideas to the edge, and just as often with controversial results - witness his stories of a Thai prostitute (The Good Woman Of Bangkok) and the dark side of a country town (Cunnamulla). He had already decided that the human impact of landmines would be a worthy topic but hadn’t planned on filming it in Afghanistan until the 9/11 attacks led to the U.S. ousting the rabid Taliban regime. On his first day in Kabul, he found the subject of this film, Habiba, a young, burqa-covered woman whose leg was blown off by a mine and who was now reduced to begging in a society that’s hard enough for able-bodied women. It turns out she is married to another mine victim, Shah, who struggles to make a living as a shoe repairer. O’Rourke weaves through this revealing, touching portrait of their lives the broader debate about the use of gruesome, indiscriminate weapons like landmines and cluster bombs. There are 10 million in Afghanistan, laid by all sides during the various wars over the past 25 years. He juxtaposes Soviet training films and U.S. bombing footage with the painfully slow process of trying to remove these dangerous devices. And if you watch the documentary a second time with the commentary on, O’Rourke explains the difficulties he had working in such a traditional society - filming a mid-wife, for example, discussing pregnancy with Habiba got him into all sorts of trouble. But the rewards were clearly worth it - as the amazing scene in the Red Cross artificial limb hospital eloquently shows. In the end, though it inevitably has its grim side and there’s no real suggestion of a solution in Afghanistan, this is a surprisingly affecting and, yes, tender story.   

****

BILL HOLDSWORTH

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