The Giant Buddhas

I just saw this film at the Florida Film Fest and I can't believe that it made it into the fest at all. I am sure that the film makers went to a great deal of trouble, but the resulting film has almost no structure and no interest in Buddism.

There was a great deal of hand held footage of the camera zoomed in and pointed at the ground as someone walked along creating the "Blair Witch seasick " effect.

I did not feel that the filmmakers had a point of view that I did not agree with. It seemed that there was no point of view at all, just people poking around broken rocks. Again, I know how hard it is even to make a short film in your own back yard, so I feel bad saying this, but the subject is so rich that a much better film could be made with a different script and stock footage.

Sallam to all who read my comment, I saw this movie in 27th July-06 Thursday in Bamyan in front of Buddah. when we start watching this document Movie i was just feeling that Nelofer Pazira is the only one who could do ,i am sure when making this film they went in to a great trouble, but surly at the end having a good result of making this this i really liked this Movie,it was about the destruction of the BIG BUDDAH OF my homeland ,Bamyan, which was destroyed by the enemy of our Honor our homeland, i am sure this was done by external authority,no Afghan people could not do this horrid action to his country,so now it is done and now we have to thank from those who are still thinking about that and try to show this to the world that we did't forget the BIG BUDDAH of Bamyan.

The Gaint Buddahs was one the first film i have seen in whole my life about such a big treasure of the world.indeed this kind of movies should be seen for it shows the fact of something,this is a evidence to what had happened to the Buddah.

Iam really thankful from the producer of this movie and the actress of this movie ,NELOFAR PAZIRA. i advise you to watch this document Movie i can not define the history of this but you got to watch this

Feeling tired and spent after New Year's Eve festivities, I was scanning through channels and my eye caught the opening credits of this documentary. An impressive roster of composers were listed under "Music", making me pause and wait to see. What followed was an unexpected aesthetic, intellectual and visceral experience. Perhaps, as some other commenters have written, "Giant Buddhas" suffers from an identity crisis, alternating from straight documentary style to indie "art" movie. Visually, it does the same, presenting some sequences in a reportage style, as if shot using unglamorous digital, and others filmed as is David Lean was directing. This vacillation was not a hindrance to me: the bounty and quality of information and imagery confirmed the idea of how rich and deep this story of Afghanistan's Buddha's is. It is useless to summarize or highlight the flow and peaks of this epic poem to Afghanistan; devote an evening to it for yourself.

Alienating film. It has always upset me the way that documentaries have to add some degree of theatrics to themselves, for example, like when they make one person reenact something that did happen. In this film this was particularly off putting. So the scenes where the lady is writing or travelling and gazing at the horizon or something like that , they always feel so forced and uncomfortable. But talking about the most prominent of the film's features i was mildly interested in what it had to say in the beginning but the uncompromising and unclear way that they put some of the issues related to the theme of the movie, namely the multiculturalism and the whole al qaeda conflicts was really unsatisfying. The film makes a big deal out of itself as a political film but, at the same time, refuses to any sort of didacticism. Not only that but the points of view expressed in the film are many times ambiguous and confusing.

So this is a documentary that doesn't really document much as it refuses to explain things, at the same time as it is an art film without much feeling to it. Not feeling it too much but the subject was interesting enough