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Joy of Madness review
:. Director: Hana Makhmalbaf
:. Genre: Documentary
:. Running Time: 1:13
:. Year: 2003
:. Country: Iran
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Built on the premise that nobody would notice a 14 year old girl brandishing a handheld camera, Hana Makhmalbaf, the daughter of renowned Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Kandahar, The Actor) and sister of emerging director Samira Makhmalbaf (11'09''01 September 11, Apple), followed Samira and her crew as they were scouting Afghanistan, looking for actors to be featured in her latest film, At Five in the Afternoon. The result is a candid look at a country still haunted by the menacing ghost of the Taliban.
A behind-the-scene featurette transmuted into a full-fleshed documentary like a creature escaping its master, Joy of Madness works as you actually don't need to have seen At Five in the Afternoon to relate to it. Shot guerrilla style at low angles (due to her smaller size) and with plenty of close-ups, the film's strength lies in its in-your-face approach. Being a young girl in a male-dominated society was certainly an asset here, as Hana was able to capture vibrant moments: arguments, fear, uncertainty and lies punctuate the film while the scars of war remain omnipresent in the background.
Following Samira like her shadow, on the road, in the street, and into the very heart of these empty homes, Hana not only confronts the hypocrisy of men and the difficulty of being an Afghan woman, but also the poverty and unhealthy living conditions. People of all ages, from babies to elders, live in the dirt and eat what they can. The findings are severe: neither the religious grip nor the American military clean-up seem to have improved the everyday life of the population.
In Joy of Madness, the central plot—the search for actors—isn't important, even becoming redundant after a while as Samira must battle the same fear and lies going through the casting process over and over again. Hana's shooting style, messy and annoying at time, shouldn't be a point of focus either—hey, for a 14 year-old, it's still better than a lot of indie crap I've seen anyway. What really matters here is the rough and authentic snapshot she took of a society at a loss, a casualty of fanaticism and western egoism, which makes Joy of Madness more effective than a feature film, thus cannibalizing Samira's own At Five in the Afternoon.
Fred Thom
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