SEPTEMBER TAPES
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
First Look Media/THINKfilm
Grade: B
Directed by: Christian Johnston
Written by: Christian Johnston, Christian Van Gregg
Cast: George Calil, Wali Razaqi
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 8/26/04
In my youthful days when I had considered doing a Ph.D. in
Political Science, my intended topic was the Naxalite movement
in India. The Naxalites, a movement with no more import today
in South Asia today than the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee is in the U.S., was a Maoist organization dedicated to
the violent overthrow of the Indian government. When I
suggested the topic to my adviser, he gave me a look like the
one sent by Michael Moore's way by a congressman who was
asked whether he'd like to volunteer his son to the army in Iraq.
A violent group like the Naxalites would hardly have much
respect for an American scholar or for anything western, so that
cockamamie idea went out the window.
Just when you might think that all such notions would be nuts,
along comes Christian Johnson with a similar idea, which is to
send an American "journalist" (actually an actor) into Kabul in
September of 2002 with the aim of checking out the scene in
Kabul and, later, in the northern areas near the Afghanistan
border with Pakistan. The journalist had a strong motive to risk
his life at a time that travel by Americans into Afghanistan was
illegal since among the almost three thousand people killed on
9/11 was his wife, Sarah, who was on the ill-fated American
airlines flight and left a frantic message on his answering
machine.
What emerges is a thoroughly original film, a hybrid between a
genuine documentary and a staged story, the two woven together
so closely that an audience could scarcely tell what was real and
which parts were staged. The part of the journalist is performed
by George Cali, an actor who uses the name Don Larson, or
"Lars" for short, and who is being filmed from his origins at
Heathrow airport in London to the Afghan capital by Sunil
Sadarangani, called Sonny in the movie. His interpreter is Wali
Zarif (Wali Razaqi), an Afghan-American fluent in both English
and Farsi (what happened to Dari?), a guy who puts himself into
as much danger as Lars throughout the excursion.
Lars is of the view, which is almost axiomatic, that stuff is going
down in Afghanistan that the U.S. government wants us to know
about as much as it wants us to see visuals of American troops
sent home in body bags. A highlight of the trip is a visit to arms
dealers where Lars wants to buy an AK-47, but when the deal is
86d by his interpreter, the dealers become enraged and threaten
to kill the troupe. That looks like the real thing.
Continuing his narration as well as his acting, the journalist
continues, heading to the northern regions where Osama bin
Laden is allegedly hiding. At that point his principal interest is to
interview Baba Jon, who is a leading bounty hunter out to get
President Bush's promised 25 million dollar award for the head of
the world's most infamous terrorist. His jeep is ambushed and
Lars take pot shots at the attacking Afghan guerrillas, hitting a
couple of them in what later becomes clear has been staged
rather than actual.
The script by the director and Christian Van Gregg takes care
of what the principal performers have to say. The others in the
film speak without a written guide. Much credit should be
afforded the cast and crew for presenting a genuine original in
this hybrid film, though if you tend to get carsick, take along a
pack of Compazine–the hand-held camera shakes throughout
the venture more than Chubby Checker and Elvis combined in a
month of concerts.
Not Rated. 95 minutes. © 2004 by Harvey Karten
at harveycritic@cs.com
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