23. Stray Dogs (2004) *

In a previous post, I reviewed Buddha collapsed out of shame, directed by the young Irani film maker, Hana Makhmalbaf.  The film script about a young girl's attempts to go to school in Afghanistan were developed with her mother, Marzieh Meshkini.  It is by coincidence that I selected the two films to watch on the same day without knowing their relationship at the time.   

Stray Dogs (2004) made three years prior to her daughter's movie also focuses on the plight of children in post-Taliban Afghanistan. There are similarities in the movies which alerted me to a possible relationship.  The cruelty of the young boys as they endeavour to burn a dog to death.  The touching portrait of children, stoic and self-sufficient against the indifference of adults. 

Stray Dogs tells the story of two children and the dog they rescue.  Calling themselves 'night prisoners' the children visit their mother at night and sleep with her in jail.  The father of the children fought against the Americans and was presumed dead during five years in which time the mother remarried.  The mother then found herself in prison for 'adultery'.  Their father is also in prison and is subsequently moved to Guantanamo Bay leaving the children homeless.  One evening a new guard informs them that the rules have changed and they can no longer sleep in the prison.  The children therefore decide to steal something so that they can sleep in prison with their mother... 

When asked why she made a movie about Afghanistan, Meshkini stated: 

I was born in Iran, but the entire world is my home. I have learnt that filmmaking is a way of alleviating the sufferings of human beings. Just as we have doctors without frontiers, we also have artists without frontiers. My compassion is aroused whenever there is suffering. Saadi, one of the greatest Persian poets, has a poem which expresses the same sentiment and has been posted on the United Nations’ portal:

Human beings are members of one another.
As they have been created from one essence.
When one member suffers pain.
The other members become restless.
You don’t deserve to be called a human being.
If you are indifferent to other people’s woes.

Food for thought.