MASSOUD, THE AFGHAN []
Riveting visits with a slain Afghan hero.In French and Pashtu with English subtitles. Running time: 98 minutes. Not rated. At the Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St., between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street.
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FRENCH documentarian Christophe de Ponfilly first went to Afghanistan in 1981 to film the war against the Soviets.
It was there he met and was captivated by Ahmed Shah Massoud, a charismatic young engineer turned successful general.
The filmmaker made seven more visits, along with three films, over the next 17 years, spending time with Massoud, who, after defeating the Russians, went on to fight the Taliban and was murdered by Osama bin Laden’s operatives on Sept. 9, 2001.
De Ponfilly’s films helped make a romantic legend of the Tajik warlord, whose mountain headquarters became a place of pilgrimage for adventurous journalists.
“Massoud, the Afghan,” which includes footage from all of de Ponfilly’s visits to Afghanistan, is an invaluable historical document thanks to the filmmaker’s extraordinary access to Massoud, whose charm, cultivation and devotion to his people are readily apparent.
It’s also fascinating for the shots of stunning Afghan landscapes and of Kabul, which you get to see in cumulative stages of heartbreaking ruination.
The scenes of life in mountain headquarters are riveting, though there are repetitive sections with lots of men in pakul hats wandering around and giving orders.
Unfortunately, de Ponfilly’s commentary is much less interesting than his footage. There’s too much fatuous talk about his own getting away from France “and the pursuit of meaningless power” (a phrase that rings hollow after footage of Afghan tribesmen fighting over the ruins of their country).
And the Frenchman’s political comments are contaminated by his uncritical worship of Massoud and his swallowing of myths like the notion that the United States was still supporting the Taliban in the mid-’90s.
De Ponfilly also fails to mention his hero’s role in the destruction of Kabul and remains oblivious to the oppression of women.
Still, “Massoud, the Afghan” – made in 1998 before Massoud took over the Northern Alliance – remains a unique, priceless portrait of the now legendary leader, and of his beautiful country when it was in the grip of a disastrous civil war.