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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: Farsi ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN, SPECIAL FEATURES: Behind the scenes, Biographies, Cast/Crew Interview(s), Featurette, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: 'At five in the afternoon comes death,' claims a haunting snatch of poetry in this equally haunting picture from Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf. One of the first feature films to emerge from post-Taliban Afghanistan (making it a worthy companion piece to Siddiq Barmak's excellent Osama), this follows Noqreh (Agheleh Rezaie) as she struggles to redefine her role as a woman despite the protestations of her cranky, conservative father (Abdolgani Yousefrazi). Yet with death and misery everywhere, freedom seems an unlikely luxury.
...At Five in the Afternoon ( À cinq heures de l'après-midi ) ( Panj é asr )
...At Five in the Afternoon ( À cinq heures de l'après-midi ) ( Panj é asr )
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Makhmalbaf the daughter of Monsen(Kandahar) has been moved by the plight of Afghanistan's repressed women post the fall of the Taliban regime.She has also been inspired by the primitive conditions of no electricity or running water and bombed ruins.Her heroine,Nogreh,is keen to take advantage of new freedoms and opportunities afforded to women.She often disobeys her father's wishes by going to the secular school where she debates the need for a woman to be elected as President. The debates are very keen amongst the students.Mina,another who wishes to become President, gets killed by a roadside bomb.Nogreh's brother is missing,(also Leylosha's husband).Nogreh makes friends with a young poet who recites Lorca's `At 5 in the afternoon' and also gets her information about Karzai's pre-election speech.She is obsessed by Benazhir Bhutto and Indira Ghandi,powerful women figures.Her father is so fundamentalist he rails against the blasphemy of Kabul,where women go around with their faces unveiled.Her white high-heeled shoes are a symbol of her aspirations and new femininity.Her father drives a horse and cart to get them around and they are continually on the move from an overcrowded house in Kabul(too much noise) to the hulk of an aircraft,then onto the ruins of a government building.Her father talks to his horse who `doesn't understand...you only want hay'-the blasphemy and ruins. There is a comic episode where Nogreh questions a French soldier.She asks him why he voted for Chirac and he says he can't say that,he doesn't interfere in politics! The poet wants her to run a poster campaign for school election and gets her photographed by a photographer who mocks her ambitions,when she should be at home as a mother.The poet tells her to practice her speeches in front of cattle and sheep.The harsh reality of surviving in a country devastated by war,fundamentalism and illiteracy threatens her dreams and aspirations.The bleakness of the ending shows the bitter desperation of her life in Afghanistan.Although I liked this touching evocation of the struggle faced by Afghan women and there are some haunting images especially in the ruined government building, the story had wide pot-holes where it became like a travelogue- documentary with actors. Hindsight also makes its essential premise shallow-look what happened to Bhutto and still happens.Karzai has not exactly covered himself with glory in the recent corrupt elections.Razi Mohebi(Nogreh) has a haunting face and could have had a film made about her: having 3 children and both husbands dead.This is a brave film.There was a resonant image of a sea of young women in blue burqhas in the desert that remains with me.Hope.
53 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
It's hard to dispute that Iranian filmmakers - most importantly the Makhmalbaf family - are leading the way with realist cinema. In Blackboards, Samira followed a group of Kurdish teachers made refugees by the chemical bombing of Halabcheh as they stumbled around the mountainous Iran/Iraq border trying to sell English lessons to a population whose children are mostly smugglers' mules. Here she builds on her father's work, Kandahar, which first visited post-war Afghanistan with a story of woman's return from Canadian exile to save her suicidal sister.
In At Five in the Afternoon, Makhmalbaf's Afghanistan could not be more foreign or more bleak, yet her sympathetic portrayals - especially of men who pray at the sight of a woman's face - ensure there's no judgement. Instead, Nogreh's going against her father to become an educated woman plays out naturally, like teen rebellion.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Just a beautiful slab of Iranian cinema.
Nogreh, a young women in post-Taliban Afghanistan battles against harsh living conditions and the intolerance of her father to gain an education and a future for herself. She even dreams of being the first woman president one day. Samira Makhmalbaf's third film is her best: at once neo-realist and allegorical, making the most of the harsh and beautiful landscape to present a 'borderless' vision of the victory of hope over despair.
Nogreh, a young women in post-Taliban Afghanistan battles against harsh living conditions and the intolerance of her father to gain an education and a future for herself. She even dreams of being the first woman president one day. Samira Makhmalbaf's third film is her best: at once neo-realist and allegorical, making the most of the harsh and beautiful landscape to present a 'borderless' vision of the victory of hope over despair.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Slow but interesting story
At first i didn't realise it was sub-titles but got over that. The story is very slow but somehow you continue with it because you want to know the outcome. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Heidi222
An Afghan tragedy
This is one of the remarkable series of films which have made Iranian cinema the best in the world. After the fall of the Taliban Nogreh participates in the new female education... Read more
Published on 11 Jun 2007 by P. C. Reynell
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