The collapsed Buddha

Last weekend I watched a very interesting movie, the title of the name called, "Buddha collapsed out of shame". The movie was shot in Bamyan, Afganistan. In the movie, you can clearly see the hole in the mountain where the Talibans militia had destroyed the valuable historic heritage statue in March 2001.

The movie had won the Crystal Bear and Peace Film award in the Berlin International Film Festival. So I figure out why not buy the tickets and check it out before they take it down. The first few minutes view of the movie was kinda below my expectation, because the picture quality is quite amateur, is like the director just hold his RM3k HD camcorder and start to produce a movie out of it. When the story goes on, it became quite interesting.

It talks about this 5-6 y/o little girl who want to go to school after her neighbor told her some interesting story that he learnt at school. So she had to find a way to the school by stealing the eggs at her home and trade it for money so she can buy herself a exercise book and pencil. In the movie, you get to see what it was like living in the caves in Bamyan, where taliban troops used to built it as their weapon storage area.

On the way to school, the poor little girl also met a bunch of taliban boys that ruined her journey. The story is very simple but it tells you how hopeless are the kids in Afghanistan, the title of the movie was named that way because the editor said, if the taliban don't destroy the statue themselves, the statue will collapse itself one day with how the country is heading. The movie ended with an interesting phrase that reads 'If you die, you will set yourself free..." It was a shame that the statue was destroyed in such way as it could be used it as a tourist spot for the poor afghan people to boost their income.

For those who are okay with foreign movies, I do recommend they check out this movie. It only limited to certain cinemas. The theatre is quite empty though on that day, may be also due to there is a Germany vs Argentina match on that day. Please be mentally prepared and don't expect hollywood style of entertainment for this kind of movie.