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EUR DVD (The Beauty Academy of Kabul) REVIEW: Afghani Women Trade in Burkas for Beauty Tips in Female Empowerment Documentary.
*Under the Taliban, females in Afghanistan were forced to dress covered up from head to toe in a basic black burka, whenever they wanted to venture out in public.
After the fall of that repressive regime, the women were theoretically free to dress as they please, but many were still reluctant to test the waters for fear of reprisal from religious zealots. This was understandable, given the fact that the new democracy doles out the death penalty for seemingly minor offenses like converting to Christianity.
So, in order to help their Afghani sisters summon up the strength to assert their equal rights, a team of hairdressers from New York City decided to set up shop in Kabul, the country’s capital. Figuring, if they could make it in The Big Apple, they could make it anywhere, these intrepid cosmetologists opened a beauty school, inviting ladies all across the land to take part in a liberating lipstick revolution.
This honorable mission of mercy is chronicled in The Beauty Academy of Kabul, a female empowerment flick which teeters back and forth between tragic and uplifting. One minute you’re moved by the sight of women shedding their veils to get dolled up with make-up and perms, the next your fighting back tears listening to them recount the horrors of living in a land where women are treated like dirt.
“How did this happen to us,” one asks while having her haircut. “I saw three women in burkas doused with gasoline and set afire.” Others recount how friends and relatives had appendages chopped off for behavior the average American would consider normal. For instance, one was accused of dancing, a big no-no, when she was actually only exercising.
We learn that even today, any woman who goes out alone at night without a male relative ought to expect to be disfigured, as a message to others “that if they don’t listen to their husbands or fathers, they’ll look like her.”
Judging by this daunting documentary, Afghanistan needs another war, one fought on behalf of the female half of the population for whom the overthrow of the Taliban was but a baby step in the right direction.
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A scene from 'The Beauty Academy of Kabul'
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
In Persian and English with subtitles
Running time: 74 minutes
Studi Shadow Distribution
