The significance of posture-Kandahar

In Makmalbaf's Kandahar, an important image that resonated with me was the posture while the students were reading and reciting the Quran in the Madrassah. It was not one of harmony or peace or synonymous with intellectual learning that we see in the Islamic intellectual tradition but entailed something more eerie and dark- that the muslim itinerant's learning was in a more politically violent context. Phrases such as 'weapon which executed God's orders' and 'kills the living' becomes antithetical to our common notions about peace and stability and brings forth a new Muslim narrative- one which looks at a nation at the heart of which violence becomes a quintessential feature. Even when the women are voiceless, their personalities seem to become less dominant as they hide behind the Burqa. The only semblance of the woman's voice (with the exception of Nafas) is that of when they are crying and even then, the posture is circular and extremely emphatic. This circular movement has important implications for our contextualization of the category of the Muslim woman- where she becomes dehumanized being reduced to emotion and movement, yet there comes across a deadness inside their souls. Even in mundane activities such as the women washing clothes, there is this circular up-down movement which then shows how this submissiveness and patriarchal hold has been internalized by the muslim woman which almost becomes a haunting portrayal about the female itinerant.