The Beauty Academy of Kabul
by Liz Mermin
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DVD details
Director: Liz MerminBrand: New Video
Cinematographer: Lynda Hall
Editor: Liz Mermin
Producer: Liz Mermin
Producer: Linda Saetre
Producer: Nigel Noble
Producer: Sheri Levine
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Persian (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 74 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Docurama
DVD Reviews of The Beauty Academy of Kabul
DVD Review: Interesting and should be seen by all
Summary: 4 Stars
I had read the book written about the beauty school when it first came out and just got around to watching the documentary this weekend. I am so glad I made the effort and would recommend all westerners view this if possible.
The Afghani women are incredible -- the sacrifices they make to to attend the school and better themselves are unbelievable. Trying to go to school with children playing at your feet before going home to cook with none of luxuries of an American kitchen and a husband who doesn't view it his role to help make be tired just watching it. The Americans that go into the school appear to have basically very good intentions and I applaud that they are willing to disrupt their lives to help others. That being said, there was a lot of "ugly" American in this film. They were largely arrogant, insensitive and disrepectful of the culture in which these women live. The students have come through war and poverty and one of the instructors reams them out for not being more foward-thinking in their hair color. What? Another instructor seems to be totally shocked and confused as to why these women seem to be afraid of their husbands. I just wanted to so "Hello -- are all you Americans stupid ? Did you not spend some time before going there trying to understand the way these women live and the culture/laws of the country?"
My one complaint is that I wish more time had been spent on the Afghani women's stories. They were more interesting than the Americans but got less time focused on their lives.
DVD Review: Hairdressers out from hiding . . .
Summary: 4 Stars
This revealing and sometimes amusing documentary follows the efforts of several western women to open a beauty school in Kabul, Afghanistan, in the days following the fall of the Taliban regime. Here the feminist assumptions of the school's instructors collide with the realities of life for women in a more traditional, male-dominated Islamic culture.
The filmmakers have been invited into the homes of some of these women and we learn a great deal about their values and aspirations, as well as what is expected of them. When a young single woman reveals that she is "in love" with a young man, she makes the filmmaker promise not to tell her mother, who would strongly disapprove. A married woman speaks of living through the reign of Taliban terror that kept women house-bound, and another describes secretly working as a hairdresser during those years in her home - in defiance of the law. The beauty school instructors may make you cringe, but you'll admire their students.
DVD Review: I shall be released
Summary: 5 Stars
This short documentary works for me on several levels.
Taking it at face value, an international group of hairdressers, American, British and Afghani establish a Beauty School in Kabul, to restore an institution which had been targeted for destruction and outlawed by the Taliban regime. It is a story which can be construed as amerikan imperialism, introducing a capitalistic, secular business in the capital city of Kabul a feat which is only possible because of the security of NATO troops in the city. However, it becomes clear from some of the cameos of the students that hairstyling and makeup were underground activities that many women were demanding even under the threat of beheadings and the more extreme punishments available under Sharia. Throughout the film there is the juxtaposition of images of beauty and sisterhood with those of armed men looking on with considerable bemusement.
On another level though, the film raises as many questions as answers. One is struck by the admission of one refugee to America of her feelings of guilt after leaving her homeland, that she did nothing to help her abandoned Afghani "sisters" in the series of struggles which beset her native country. What sort of society did exist in Afghanistan before the Russian invasion? We know that there was some sort of monarchy which, following a coup, became some sort of republic. Did it meet the George Bush Jr. test of a democracy? Then came the Russian invasion and the establishment of the jihadist movement, finance and armed by the US and led by one Osama bin Laden. Did the CIA know or even suspect that this would lead to the establishment of a particular type of an Islamic Republic led by the Taliban?
On a human level, it is clear from the level of interest of ordinary Afghan women that beauty and makeup are things that they are interested in but they must bow to the wishes of their husbands and families who may not approve of their use of make up or different hair styles. While not wishing to tread in or on the footsteps of feminists here, I for one, believe that it is an inalienable right of every person to have self-determination.
This little film deserves much wider attention than it has received. I heartily recommend it to everyone.
DVD Review: feminist liberation or cultural imperialism?
Summary: 5 Stars
In 2003 six American hairdressers opened a beauty school in the bombed out ruins of post-Taliban Kabul. Director Liz Mermin follows this venture from the grand opening and selection of the first class to the graduation dinner three months later. Two of the volunteers, Sima and Shaima, had emigrated from Afghanistan to the United States more than twenty years earlier, and their cultural reconnection is emotionally powerful. "It's been twenty years since I was here," observes Sima, "but the country has regressed a hundred years." Two other volunteers are positively obnoxious; they cannot understand why these Afghan women would not wear makeup, drive, or anger their husbands. One of them begins classes with yoga meditation as the Afghan women giggle. Another gushes that their project is not just about hair and makeup but about "healing the country." The real heroes that make this film worth watching, though, are the Afghan women. "Our men have backwards mentalities," one of them laments. I found the symbolism of a beauty parlor run by culturally insensitive American do-gooders in a conservative Muslim country rich with paradox. Was this project one of genuine feminist liberation or self-congratulatory cultural imperialism? A little of both, I thought. In English and Afghan.DVD Review: worth viewing
Summary: 4 Stars
Not withstanding the vanity of the western women, this is a poignant, agenda-less film that documents the gap between the east and west, and the modest aspirations of Afghani women to show their visage in public.
This movie is certainly interesting in demonstrating the chasm between between eastern and western feminine mores. Nothing like a bunch of dead family members to cement a reluctance to adopt western fashion. Certainly the chasm is so substantial that its hard to fathom that a term such as "love marriage" exists on this planet, but there it is. And the flakiness that is celebrated in the west as "diversity" and "enlightenment" is exposed in this film for its weirdness. Afghani society is not so tolerant of behavior that is outside the lines.
If nothing else, we have a misinterpretation of gaps; we have westerners hoping to cross decades of difference when the gap is centuries. And yet the resilient women of Kabul, some who have never known peace know that they are right and that the battle is not a matter how but when. This is not a story with dramatic twists or stunning turns, but a modest story of cowed women taking modest steps to assert themselves in a society that suddenly stopped caring what women had to say and only now minimally willing to consider their contribution. It is a moving story of small acts of courage in the face of cultural retardation.
Description of The Beauty Academy of Kabul
An arresting and optimistic portrait of post-Taliban Afghanistan, the theatrical hit THE BEAUTY ACADEMY OF KABUL captures the wonderfully odd circumstances that bring Afghan and American women together in pursuit of physical beauty and much more. In this utterly unique film, a quirky gaggle of Western hairstylists, including Afghan-American women, armed with blow driers and designer scissors, improbably opens a school to teach eager Afghan women the high art of fixing hair. Torn by decades of war and oppression, the women of Kabul embrace perm rods and mascara with unbridled hope even as they candidly recall the horrors of burkas and bombs. Both humorous and slyly subversive, the film offers poignant moments of culture clash between the Americans and Afghans and touching moments of feminine solidarity. Eschewing the trivial, THE BEAUTY ACADEMY OF KABUL innovatively renders the odd story of international goodwill through hair care in exquisitely humane terms.When "liberators" don't understand the country they're trying to help, the end result can be well meaning, but diluted. In the documentary The Beauty Academy of Kabul, filmmaker Liz Mermin focuses on a group of American hair stylists who travel to post-Taliban Afghanistan to teach local women how to beautify themselves and their customers. Though well-intentioned and enthusiastic, many of the Westerners come across as clueless and thoughtless. Looking at a group of women eager to pick up some styling tips, an Indiana hairdresser admonishes them for looking plain and demands to know why they're not wearing makeup. She seems to have no idea that until recently, these women were covered head to toe in burkas. Another American stylist says to her translator, "It seems to me some of these women are fearful of their husbands. Why?" And yet another seems disappointed when her class makes no notice of her declaration that Frederic Fekkai--the famed hairdresser to the stars--personally donated the scissors they're using. Mermin would've done better to focus less on the Americans and more on the Afghani women, many of whom have heartbreaking stories to tell. One, who got married at 14, notes, "Men and women should be equal." Another young student likes the idea of marrying a man she falls in love with, but pragmatically points out, "If a guy can fall in love with you, he can fall in love with someone else, too." It is these women who carry the story. And it is these women whose stories should've been delved into more. --Jae-Ha Kim
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