L'Orphelinat

Wonderful, a six-handed production (countries) that social criticism we love, bathing in history, a sad time the takeover of Afghanistan by the Soviets, called the War in Afghanistan (1979-1989), and the outcome, the film, could not to be different, the tragedy, the sadness, the defeat, and the interrupted ending, of the unspoken drama...

The film is about a kid named Qodratullah who is forced to live in an orphanage by the pro-Soviet government of Afghanistan in 19189 Kabul. As soon as he arrives in the orphanage which is around 10-15 minutes in, the director lifts her focus and camera from the kid and tries instead to capture every elements in that place such as the kids, the dorms, the teachers and supervisers and so on.

This film is made based on unpublished diaries of Mr. Anwar Hashimi who also stars in this film and he lived in such a place for 8 years when he was a teenager. As a result, the main focus and star of this film is the mentioned orphanage and director Shahrbanoo Sadat reflects on Afghans culture and the country's political state at that time period as a subplot to the life in the orphanage.

The filmmakers have done their best to give us a human, sans cliche film and they have pretty much succeeded doing so. If you've got a chance to see this piece, don't miss it.

"The Orphanage" may techincally be a 'Danish' film but it's set in Kabul during the Russian invasion and it is as much a homage to Bollywood as anything and is a much better one than Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire". It's hero is Qodrat, (Quodratollah Qadiri, wonderful and basically playing himself), a teenage boy living on the streets who is arrested for selling cinema tickets illegally and put in the orphange of the title; it turns out to be the making of him.

Shahrbanoo Sadat's second feature could easily have been full of neo-realist angst but Sadat imbues it with so much affection that the angst completely disappears even if the Bollywood tendency to kitsch is never far away while it's young cast, (non-professionals all), are excellent. This is a political film where the politics take a back seat and a coming-of-age movie devoid of sentimentality. Its sweetness is intoxicating and even when tragedy strikes Sadat never over-emphasizes but simply accepts that this is the way things are. A really lovely film.

In writer-director Shahrbanoo Sadat's second feature, a young man who daydreams of action-packed Bollywood heroics finds himself in a considerably more dangerous position in real life: that of an orphan scraping by in Kabul at the end of the 1980s, with the Soviets maintaining control as the Mujahideen fight to take their land back.

Part two of a planned five-part series that began with 2016's Wolf and Sheep - which, like this movie, premiered in Cannes' Directors' Fortnight - The Orphanage (Parwareshgah) is a small yet touching chronicle where innocent teenage boys fall prey to socio-political forces way beyond their control.

Mixing historical docudrama and make-believe, the story is not exactly a tightly knit narrative, with an observant tone that has its nonprofessional cast oscillating between scenes of harsh reality and pure film fantasy. It should play more festivals after Cannes and nab a few art house pickups abroad, especially in Europe.

Qodratollah Qadiri, who also toplined Wolf and Sheep and is poised to become Sadat's very own Antoine Doinel if the two keep working together, stars as Quodrat, a friendly streetwise teenager who makes a modest living reselling tickets to his favorite Bollywood flicks, which he himself sits and watches with wide-eyed appreciation.

When he's rounded up by the cops and sent to a public orphanage, Quodrat's life shifts from a carefree hand-to-mouth existence to a stricter hierarchy ruled by bullies and overseen by a kindhearted administrator (Sediqa Rasuli). He soon befriends a group of boys who become his roommates, including the chess master, Masihullah (Masihullah Feraji), his nephew Fayaz (Ahmad Fayaz Omani) - the uncle and nephew are both teens - and the war-obsessed Hasib (Hasibullah Rasooli).

Together, the four live through several Little Rascals-style adventures, forgetting where they are for the time being and enjoying themselves like any boys left to their own devices. Sadat mixes those scenes with Bollywood-inspired flights-of-fancy where Quodrat and his buddies lip-sync to gushy ballads or showcase the fighting skills of action superstars like Anil Kapoor. (In the press notes, the director explains how Bollywood movies were hugely popular in Kabul during the 1980s.)

But those illusions hide a grimmer truth, with one boy going mad and locked up in a wretched psych ward, and another accidentally killed by leftover ammunition stolen from a Russian tank. As much as Quodrat can imagine movies in his mind, what he sees in the real world is far scarier: a place where orphans like him seem to be expendable.

Sadat cuts a little too systematically between the reality and fantasy scenes throughout the narrative, which heads to some predictable places despite the unique setting. The most memorable thing about The Orphanage is actually not all the movie make-believe, which feels like a device used before, but rather the way it shows how life under Soviet rule could in fact be beneficial for boys in Quodrat's situation.

This is most evident in a long sequence where the orphans take a trip to a summer camp in the Soviet Union, working on their Russian (which they are already learning back in Afghanistan) and partaking in various activities, as if they were regular kids and not orphans at all. Probably the most moving shot in the entire film is one where we see Masihullah's reaction after playing computer chess for the first time and beating the machine - it's a rare victory in an otherwise depleted life.

Like Wolf and Sheep, Sadat shot the movie in Tadjikistan, mixing natural splendors with the starker institutional interiors. A grainy look makes the film feel like it was actually made in the 80s, adding to its historical authenticity. When, at the end, the orphanage risks tumbling along with the Soviet regime, you're left with the harrowing feeling that for Quodrat and his friends, it's out of the frying pan and into the fire..

Pros: 1. The dialogue is incredibly grounded and genuine, thus giving the conversations an air of realism to the adolescent boy interactions. 2. The cinematography is gorgeously scaled-back, again adding to the realistic feel. 3. The short intermittent sing-a-long scenes in Hindu-Urdu are exceedingly entertaining, bizarre, and eye-popping. 4. The film does a great job at highlighting the similarities between The West and pre-Mujahideen Afghanistan.

Cons: 1. The movie is needlessly slow-paced and, at times, is a little bit of a chore to get through. 2. Most of the characters are unspeakably plane and uninteresting, with nothing to them (the exception being Qodrat (Quodratollah Qadiri) as he's shown to be thrifty, however that trait is shown early on and is then forgotten about). 3. The acting is generally really stale and uninspiring. 4. The script is unfocused, disjointed, and it often feels that the scenes are just jumping from one-to-the-next with little coherence. 5. There are copious sub-plots introduced, and then carelessly discarded with no resolution. With examples being, Qodrat's possible love interest, or the Russian military presence and Russian diplomatic ties to pre-Mujahideen Afghanistan. 6. The ending death of Anwar (Anwar Hashimi) falls resolutely flat as he's barely a character, and the death isn't set up at all. It also doesn't help that there's this strange sing-and-fight sequence straight after.