91
The director manages to maintain a steady streak of grim humor. Extreme repression can be bleakly funny in its idiocy, when viewed from a distance.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Kandahar feels like a Magritte painting rendered in sand tones, and your eyes are drawn to the screen. There aren't enough of these moments, though, and Mr. Makhmalbaf lessens their power by repeating them.
75
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
While it's often harsh in style and melancholy in subject, Kandahar taps into veins of humor and compassion as well.
80
A visually exalting, emotionally horrifying view of Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.
63
New York Post by Jonathan Foreman
Unfortunately, you are often distractingly aware that you are watching re-enactments of real events.
90
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
This remarkably revealing and timely film, in which the depiction of pain and sorrow is suffused with a sense of beauty and a graceful, flowing style, more than lives up to glowing advance notices.
88
Charlotte Observer by Lawrence Toppman
Kandahar found itself in real-life controversy last December, when one of its actors was accused of murder.
88
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
Watching this film wakes you up; it is a window on an Iran and an Afghanistan we should have taken account of long ago -- seen though a master's eye, felt through a poet's touch.
67
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
With its lyrical vision of oppression, looks, if anything, milder now than it might have before the war.
88
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Kandahar does not provide deeply drawn characters, memorable dialogue or an exciting climax. Its traffic is in images.