Film

Jung (War): In the Land of the Mujaheddin screens at the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center, in Portland, on December 16 and 17 at 7 p.m. Call (207) 775-5568.

Even to say this makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up — it is a difficult idea to consider, and I can imagine the kinds of things people will say to me for suggesting it.

Of course, neither the American people nor our leaders can be expected to control or predict the actions of terrorists. Of course, no one could ever deserve the terrible events of that day — that’s not at all what I’m suggesting, to do so would be inhuman and irresponsible.

What the film Jung: In the Land of the Mujaheddin does suggest — more perhaps due to its release date in this country than the intentions of the directors — is that the Western World ignored the situation in Afghanistan for far too long. Merely by seeing the Afghan people and the effects of their 22 year-old war, one can begin to understand how such a level of suffering could spawn a group like the Taliban and allow them to gain control. Watching this powerful documentary makes you want to find out more about our country’s foreign policy, and that of other Western countries, which allowed the situation in Afghanistan to be so bad, for so many people, for so long.

The cruel irony is that Jung, which means “war” in Dari, one of five different languages spoken in Afghanistan, would probably not even be on our radar screen were it not for the events of September 11.

Making a more direct link between September 11 and Afghanistan, Dr. Strada, the Italian surgeon who figures prominently in the film, recently said: “For me, a child at ground zero and a child in the bazaar at Kabul have the same face.”

The film, shot and put together by Italians Giuseppe Petitto, Alberto Vendemmiati, and Fabrizio Lazzaretti, documents the attempts of Strada, Ettore Mo (an Italian journalist), and Kate Rowland (a British nurse), to open a hospital in Northern Afghanistan for Emergency, an Italian humanitarian group.

Jung brings cinéma vérite to a new level. Filmed and edited roughly, with three digital cameras, the images are incredible and shocking, even to a 21st-century American audience: limbs severed by land mines, a man having shrapnel removed from his eye socket, a man having his leg removed below the knee with a saw that looks as sharp as a bread knife, etc. And the faces and words of the Afghan citizens who speak to the camera are just as affecting. A grandmother proclaims, “Not even death wants the people of Afghanistan.” Another man exclaims, “Other peoples’ wars have ended. Why doesn’t it end here?”

The only real weakness in the filming of Jung is when the camera moves away from the ordinary people in the street and hospitals for too long. Thanks to CNN, we can all find plenty of footage of machine guns, missile launchers, and cannons whenever we want it, and there are a few moments when the Italian filmmakers choose to linger on these shots too long. Sure, we get the point that the war is what’s ruining the people’s lives, but what’s most tragic is actually seeing the concrete effects, like the young man who heads back to the front lines on crutches, with a stump for a leg, because that’s all he knows to do.

Jung has also been criticized for telling its story only in the lands and from the perspective of the late Ahmed Shah Massoud and his Northern Alliance — who are certainly not without fault. However, the filmmakers were only able to gain access to Taliban-controlled territory near the end of the making of the film. Plus, one gets the sense that Strada and his cohorts are not interested in anything other than helping people heal, die, and grieve. They opened a hospital in Kabul last spring, were forced by the Taliban to close it, and are already trying to get it back open.

At the outset of Jung, Strada says that one and a half million people have died, a million have been disfigured, and four million have been made into refugees during the years of war in Afghanistan. I still have to remind myself that those numbers are as of February, 1999. The film doesn’t have the opportunity to answer the question of why so few people were paying attention before September 11, and thus forces you to ask yourself this question. It is a haunting film, and one that should be seen by anyone interested in the situation in Afghanistan — which should include most of us.

Video empathy

Portraying the plight of the Afghan people