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Travelling by Kabul Express - Movie Review


On the movie's website, Kabir Khan, director of Kabul Express, with serious credentials as a documentary film maker describes how the the seed of Kabul Express germinated in his mind.

In one of his visits to a remote prison in Afghanistan, he met a dreaded Pakistani terrorist Salahuddin Khaled, a veteran of many terrorist operations who worked for Taliban and was later captured. In one of those perception altering moments, he sees the human face of this terrorist when he speaks with his daughter on their satellite phone after 5 years. This was the moment he decided to make the movie.

Kabul express is a movie about humans and their equations with other humans. It is about the complexity of current global issues.It is about how there is no right or wrong, black or white when it comes to dealing with life, and also about how circumstances can shape our perceptions. Above all, its about one man's experience in Afghanistan.

It's a story in which Afghanistan not only plays the backdrop as a war torn country, but also as one of the central characters of the movie. In some sense, the movie is not intended to drive home a message. Its like a personal diary, where he captures his life as he lived during Afghanistan. In many ways, this movie is like a documentary film.

What was refreshingly different was the director's attempt to capture his experiences on celluloid within the commercial hindi cinema format.And boy, does he do a good job at it! What worked for me was the laid back approach that the director adopted. He used subtle humor to bring out the issues without attempting to emotionally overwhelm the audience. The scene of the "suicide donkey", the Pepsi vs. Coke debate were thought provoking and comical at the same time.

By the time the movie ended, I couldn't help but feel that I was travelling by "Kabul Express" with the protagonists, not as a passive spectator but an active one who was laughing at their jokes, feeling their emotions and living their life.

I became part of the narrative.

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[deleted]

Pure crap cinema, tired of this bollywood crap!

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