In this context, singing on television is not mere self-aggrandizement but an expression of hard-won freedom.

I would never have predicted that an American Idol -type singing contest could be a force of liberation, but Havana Marking's documentary Afghan Star won me over. It follows four contestants in a television contest of the same name and by the end of the 88 minute journey you'll learn more about contemporary Afghanistan than you will from a month of watching television news in the United States.

Afghanistan has suffered a world of troubles beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979. When the Soviets departed from the destabilized country, warlords fought for supremacy and eventually the Taliban ruled most of the country. During their rule, girls were forbidden from attending school, women were forbidden to work, and television and music were banned altogether. With the elections of 2001 those prohibitions were dropped, but people (women especially) still live under a variety of restrictions.

In this context, singing on television is not mere self-aggrandizement but an expression of hard-won freedom. Because everyone, regardless of ethnicity or gender, is allowed to compete, the contest makes an important statement about Afghan unity. And winners are selected by cell phone vote, giving some Afghans their first experience with democracy.

The contest begins with regional auditions and many of the contestants are as bad as you would imagine. But the four finalists tracked in this film each bring something to the table. Rafi is a good looking teenager who wants to be a rock star, and in his home town of Mazar e Sharif he's a hero already. Hameed is a classically trained singer who has become a hero for the Hazara, a disadvantaged group many of whom were massacred by the Taliban. Lima is a Pashtun woman from the conservative region of Kandahar who has to hide her music books in case the Taliban search the house. Setara is a woman from Herat who models her stage presence after Bollywood heroines.

Afghan Star conveys a sense of the diversity of contemporary Afghanistan: lots of different kinds of people live there, and they lead all sorts of lives. Old and new frequently collide: a burka-clad woman snaps a picture of one of the contestants. Lima wears a burka in Kandahar and another woman says she looks like a suicide bomber. A young woman improvises an antenna on the roof of her house so the family can watch the contest on television while her younger sister pretends that her Barbie dolls represent Lima and Setara. Adults discuss the freedom of the 1980's, when (gasp!) men and women attended university together.

Lest you think everything has gone modern in Afghanistan, when Setara dances on stage and exposes her hair, even her supporters gasp while her male rivals smugly proclaim that she got out of line. She is denounced on television by a cabinet minister and former warlord and returns home in fear of her life. Lima also receives death threats merely for appearing on the program.

Afghan Star is not a masterpiece of documentary filmmaking, but it's more than carried by the subject matter. Oddly enough, the film includes very little of the contestants' performances. But in this case the point isn't really who wins or loses, or whether they were good or bad by professional standards, but that the contest was held at all. | Sarah Boslaugh

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