Very well executed

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Now, here's a sentiment I can relate to: peoples' universal love of singing! It doesn't matter where you're from, or which religion you follow. There's something about really belting it out into a karaoke machine that's just irresistible. People makes careers studying the psychological components and the deeper meaning of Human Nature, but some of it is pretty simple and common. This documentary follows the Afghan Star televised singing competition. The show follows the format of American Idol, but instead of singing cheesy, English pop songs, the contestants here sing traditional Afghan music. Apparently, the songs are more popular and contemporary than classical Afghan music, but they're still in some of the various languages spoken in Afghanistan, and deemed culturally and morally acceptable by Islamic law. That's important for a show that's broadcast throughout the whole nation. This is a particularly touchy subject for the nation, since it's one of the few things about which citizens can vote democratically. Anyone with a cell phone can text in and vote for his or her favorite singer. In a country as ethnically diverse as Afghanistan, citizens wonder whether the voting will really be unbiased, or whether voters will simply choose the contestant from their particular ethnic group. And, In another unsurprising twist, these new voters run right into another one of the most contentious issues in modern democracy: campaign finance. Wealthy Afghanis have figured out that they can purchase thousands of SIM cards, thereby throwing the vote in favor of their particular darling. (I guess there's more than one universal theme in this film.)This documentary is really good. Director, Havana Marking, does a great job introducing us to the various contestants, and she really builds the right amount of suspense as the competition progresses. We get to know the singers a little. We rejoice with them when they advance to another round, and we cry with them when they're eliminated. This show was very interesting, because it was one of the first new programs to pop up once the Taliban's decades long ban on singing and music was finally lifted. The show was particularly controversial because the producers allowed women to compete on television alongside men. The film indicates that this contest falls into a gray area of Islamic law. While there is no ban on women singing, the female contestants would have to be very careful not to draw the wrong kind of attention to themselves by appearing vain or sexy. And, some of these women come dangerously close to the line. It's interesting to see how Afghanistan's culture has started to revive itself after the Taliban lost its hold on Kabul. People are wary, and they are branching out very carefully, but they never really lost their old preferences.

I saw this film last night on DVD. I enjoyed it, but I think it will resonate more with me as time goes by and I get to think about it some more. Because it's a documentary, I found it to be a bit dry in terms of the "entertainment" factor. But in terms of the topic and country being covered, this was extremely interesting, and at times, sad to watch. Sad because there are glimpses on what Kabul was once like prior to the Russians invading in terms of more freedoms, and the struggle that women now have in Afghanistan since the Taliban.As someone who also watches American Idol, it was fun to see how the show looks in another country, and it is remarkably similar. The Afghans shown in this movie showed great spirit and resilience, and I wish that country the best moving forward.

This is not merely about the Afghani version of "American Idol," but the effect it has on an entire country. "Afghan Star," the talent competition on TOLO, a TV station that is monitored and at times pressured by the government, is a raging success with a public that comprises disparate ethnic strains in quite discrete parts of a country that has been repeatedly fractured. Indeed, it is seen by the program's contestants as well as by many of its viewers as a more likely path to political unity than politics itself, which has been undeniably divisive. Think of how TV brought the United States together in times of tragedy. Here is shown the power of TV in a more joyous context. The contestants in this documentary seem to be stand-ins for a political message; with the exception of Setara, a young woman who is willing to challenge the mores of her home district, we don't learn very much about their individual backgrounds. The footage of the country, however, is fascinating, both the recent views as well as those from a few decades ago, when Afghanistan looked more like an American city of the 50s. The film is gripping even as it educates those who may have no familiarity with a Third World tribal culture struggling within to resist or reclaim the push toward modernity.

Most of us are familiar with the images of Afghanistan at war, or under the Taliban; but until the rebellion against the Soviet invasion, the country was a relatively modern state, at least in the capital. As the nation attempts to find peace after decades of conflict, 'Afghan Star' follows the screening of a 'Pop Idol' style television program, apparently gripping the nation. The show is hardly racy by Western standards; indeed, with men in dodgy suits and understandably limited production values, the program feels as if it could have been made in the 1970s, before the wars started. But what we see in this film is how strikingly, and tragically, Afghanistan has moved backwards in the intervening years; and how a latent national enthusiasm for having fun is pitched against a deep set religiosity, sometimes within the same individuals. When one of the female contestants takes off her headscarf to sing, one feels a little uneasy; as an outsider, one can only guess at the true nature of the risks she is taking. In my own country, I tend to decry this kind of cheap entertainment, and there's a sense in which the reactionaries have a point when they lament the invasion of foreign culture; but they offer only regression and ignorance as an alternative. Yet when the popular enthusiasm for voting for a favourite star seems in part driven by the sense of futility in voting in elections, one fears that the dark days may not yet be over.