Exile

Just by looking at the promotional cover of the Kandahar, the film does not seem very sinister at all. This becomes the starting point of making the film look aesthetically appealing to the audience and is then continued in the video as well.

In this film cover, the desert almost seems glorified and not a scorching hot area like the one represented in the visual representation of Men in the Sun. The colour given to the desert sand in the foreground is very light and the lines receding in a diagonal direction do not even give it an effect of sand but of a smoother surface, perhaps wood. Also, the addition of the sky to the photograph lessens the impact of the desert and its high temperatures. Where a film based on journey across Afghanistan would focus on the arduous nature of the trip and heighten the cruelty of the desert, there only half of the photograph is devoted to the desert. The top half shows a magnificent sky and its blue colour adds a fresh contrast to the otherwise dull desert. This choice seems intentional on the part of the Makhmalbaf to evoke beauty out of an otherwise miserable setting.

Apart from the landscape, the women standing in the shadowed area in the distance add colour to the canvas. While one would usually imagine burqa-clad women to be in black, there the coloured burqas almost seem to show that the circumstances and condition of these women is not necessarily that severe. The various colours almost seem to suggest that there is some independence granted to these women; they are allowed to choose which colour burqa they want for themselves and reduces the rigidity otherwise imposed on women in that society. The cluster of women gives a feeling of community; there are no men in this photograph showing that the experience of burqa is specifically to these women.