May 21, 2006
The Beauty Academy of Kabul
The Title Says It All
You don't necessarily need an "interesting" subject to make a good, thought-provoking film. Directors like Jim Jarmusch and Todd Solondz have made entire careers out of documenting the mundane details of modern life.
But a good subject, provided it's treated competently, can redeem an otherwise unexceptional film. Thus is the case with Liz Mermin's documentary The Beauty Academy of Kabul.
Mermin chronicles the efforts of six Western hairdressers, including three Afghan expatriates, to start a beauty school in the war-torn capital of Afghanistan. The action unfolds over three months in 2003 and follows the school's first graduating class, beginning a few days before the school opens and ending with a graduation dinner.
The film begins in earnest following a black-and-white newsreel-style primer on the recent history of Afghanistan that focuses on the wars that have almost unabatedly ravaged the country since the Soviet occupation in 1979. It includes interviews with the teachers (shot at the school) and some of the students (shot in their homes), footage of class in progress, and some scenes in which the Westerners explore the city.
The tech credits are fine, despite what must have been difficult circumstances. Lynda Hall's cinematography, including both day- and nighttime scenes, is clean and crisp, and it's complemented nicely by a lively Middle Eastern score. Unfortunately the film is hurt by its lack of focus, point-of-view, or a discernable style.
It's only 74-minutes long, and because there are six teachers working in three week shifts each (two at a time) it seems like there is always someone arriving and someone leaving. By choosing to film each teacher's hello and farewell address Mermin leaves herself no time to allow us to develop a feel for the pace or the character of a typical class.
This also shifts attention away from the Afghan women enrolled in the class to the Western women teaching it. Mermin tries to counter this by interviewing some of the Afghan women in their homes. This creates a new problem, though: the women she interviews inevitably seem extremely nervous and ill at ease.
The cameras are always accompanied by at least one of the school's teachers, and the discomfort that hosting a film crew causes these women is further compounded by strangeness of having their teachers in their home and by their confrontational questions. In one scene they ask a student if she thinks that women will ever have political power in Afghanistan. She answers in the negative, and the awkward silence with which this is met prompts her to ask, "was my answer wrong?"
In another scene Debbie, the "crazy American" in the group, decides that she's going to teach some of her students how to drive. She's tickled by the amount of attention that she generates (people point and laugh) as she navigates the streets of Kabul: "they've probably never seen a women driving before!"
But what exactly is attracting so much notice? Is it simply that a woman is driving a car, or is it something else? She's also a white, western, non-military woman, and there's a camera crew in her back seat.
Mermin's refusal to take sides and instead allow her subjects to speak for themselves is a valid artistic decision. But there are so many characters and so many opinions voiced that we are often left adrift in a sea of ideas.
Sometimes the Western teachers seem hopelessly naive. One American hairdresser begins each class with meditation and, asking how much sleep her students get each night, observes that insomnia can be "an indication of, you know, depression."
This is greeted largely with bemusement, but we never learn from the Afghan students precisely what they find so strange. Is this an inadequate solution to their very different problems? Is it simply a strange and unfamiliar technique? Does this represent a cultural divide?
The Beauty Academy of Kabul probably would have benefited from a smaller scope. By selecting as her subject one or two teachers and students Mermin might have given us more insight into their individual experiences with the school and thus more solid footing on this unfamiliar ground.
Most of the questions raised by the film in its final form are implicit in the subject itself, and by adopting a specific point of view Mermin would have given us something to push against, a place to begin our consideration of her subject. All of these different voices clamoring for attention in this one short film make it difficult to begin a conversation.
Whatever its shortcomings, though, The Beauty Academy of Kabul is fascinating as a cultural document. It raises manifold questions about the ways that Western culture is different and similar to this one eastern culture. It draws attention to one aspect of our society, the beauty parlor, that we might take for granted and asks what role it might play in our lives. And it portrays a different face of altruism and suggests that we can be creative when we struggle with the question How can I help?
Is it a good film? Ultimately, I think not. It's too jumbled, to schizophrenic to say anything really insightful about its subject. But this subject is so interesting, so fertile that it's worth a look all the same.
