I watched “Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame” on Sunday, it was part of the Kids Film Festival here. So lucky that I was able to watch it, I guess it will be pretty hard to find small film like that without Netflix. Andrea was also there, she volunteered for the event and was part of the translator team, because… as they said in the credit part of the broschure, “she has a good English”, good job ‘ndrea!
The film is quite nice with a simple message of the importance of education. It highlights the impact of war, the madness of Taliban and the American invasion, on the life of children there. It’s good enough to give the general audience a glimpse of the life there. I am sure the reality is multiple times tougher than that. The story is about the journey of a little girl named Baktay (Nikbakht-Noruz) who is innocently trying to go the school despite all the hard circumstances. The girl’s journey is only a day and that makes the 1 hour 20 minutes film felt incredible long. She plays the role quite well. She is just adorable and super cute. The only sad feeling I got after the film is thinking if the living condition of the real young girl (Nikbakht’s) is the same as depicted in the film. She is living in a cave and part of a small village in the desert. Ehm… It is very possible.
Coincidentally, the same day I watched the film, Tom Friedman wrote an article “Teacher, Can We Leave Now? No” and is about a similar subject, children education in Afghanistan. In that article, he wrote about his visit to a small village in Afghanistan with Admiral Mike Mullen to open up a school. He said in the beginning, “I confess, I find it hard to come to Afghanistan and not ask: Why are we here? Who cares about the Taliban? Al Qaeda is gone. And if its leaders come back, well, that’s why God created cruise missiles.” Then after going through his usual style of self thinking and musing in a jocular way of serious subjects, his brain churned out a concluding impression, “I was dubious before I arrived, and I still am. But when you see two little Afghan girls crouched on the front steps of their new school, clutching tightly with both arms the notebooks handed to them by a U.S. admiral — as if they were their first dolls — it’s hard to say: “Let’s just walk away.” Not yet.”
Nothing I can do in that part of the world other than to hope for a success for Americans and Afghans there in rebuilding the children’s life and thus the country.
The film is quite nice with a simple message of the importance of education. It highlights the impact of war, the madness of Taliban and the American invasion, on the life of children there. It’s good enough to give the general audience a glimpse of the life there. I am sure the reality is multiple times tougher than that. The story is about the journey of a little girl named Baktay (Nikbakht-Noruz) who is innocently trying to go the school despite all the hard circumstances. The girl’s journey is only a day and that makes the 1 hour 20 minutes film felt incredible long. She plays the role quite well. She is just adorable and super cute. The only sad feeling I got after the film is thinking if the living condition of the real young girl (Nikbakht’s) is the same as depicted in the film. She is living in a cave and part of a small village in the desert. Ehm… It is very possible.
Coincidentally, the same day I watched the film, Tom Friedman wrote an article “Teacher, Can We Leave Now? No” and is about a similar subject, children education in Afghanistan. In that article, he wrote about his visit to a small village in Afghanistan with Admiral Mike Mullen to open up a school. He said in the beginning, “I confess, I find it hard to come to Afghanistan and not ask: Why are we here? Who cares about the Taliban? Al Qaeda is gone. And if its leaders come back, well, that’s why God created cruise missiles.” Then after going through his usual style of self thinking and musing in a jocular way of serious subjects, his brain churned out a concluding impression, “I was dubious before I arrived, and I still am. But when you see two little Afghan girls crouched on the front steps of their new school, clutching tightly with both arms the notebooks handed to them by a U.S. admiral — as if they were their first dolls — it’s hard to say: “Let’s just walk away.” Not yet.”
Nothing I can do in that part of the world other than to hope for a success for Americans and Afghans there in rebuilding the children’s life and thus the country.