Still: Paikar - Dawood Hilmandi

Source: Business Doc Europe

At the heart of Paikar**, produced by Dutch outfit BALDR Film, is Hilmandi’s attempt to understand his father Baba, an imam and former colonel in the Afghan mujahideen, who fought the invading Soviet army between 1979 and 1989. But after the Russians were defeated, there was a grab for power among the mujahideen tribes, which Baba profoundly disagreed with. “Be with us or you die,” he was warned by many of the tribes, and after he witnessed a fellow comrade being skinned alive he fled Afghanistan for neighbouring Iran, where he settled with his family. His third wife, Hilmandi’s mother, bore Baba seven children (another of whom was filmmaker Aboozar Amini). In total Baba had 14 children. 

But Baba was a very difficult father, violent and unsympathetic. Attempts by Hilmandi at loving communication with him were rebuffed disdainfully. As we see in the film, any kind of questioning as to why Baba treated his family the way he did are met with a wall of silence, or threats to break ties altogether. 

“I know many families, many people who have been through immigration or displacement or are far from their homeland, but there was a warmth among them, which was a strong survival tool,” Hilmandi tells Business Doc Europe. “But imagine that the one and only surviving tool in a family is gone, or destroyed, or damaged.”

“And for a child, your father is supposed to be your first hero, right?” Hilmandi further reasons. “But imagine your hero is damaged and you never understood why he is like that, then you feel exhausted throughout your whole life.”

Hilmandi is, however, nothing if not persistent, and during a late-night walk through the streets of Amsterdam, he feels a heightened sense of resolution. “Whatever it takes I will talk to you,” he narrates his thoughts towards Baba. 

This will, however, entail a carefully worked out process. First Hilmandi goes go on a pilgrimage to Karbala where, among a wild throng of devotees he touches the holy Shrine. This is pleasing to his father, who then agrees to accompany Hilmandi on a journey back to Afghanistan to the house where he grew up, and where the children were born. 

It is a difficult experience for Baba, who covers his face for fear of being recognised, but little by little he opens up about his past. It wasn’t just the war against the Soviets and subsequent factionalism that shaped his personality. He was also brought up as a small child by a violent stepmother, an experience he refers to in the film as a “tyranny.” 

“I saw my peers enjoying and having nice clothes, while I was only met with slaps and blows,” he says, revealing more and more of himself to Hilmandi.

Hilmandi argues that the violence goes back 140 years into Baba’s Hazara history. “It is a transgenerational trauma that people continue to carry with them, until they break the chain by questioning it,” he says.

Baba even rationalises his subsequent behaviour. “I’m not truly angry at anyone, it’s just become a habit,” he says. “My words have become bitter. But my heart is kind and compassionate, and I feel sympathy.”

Hilmandi notes to BDE how, “finally, towards the end of the film, we sort of built a bond. We kind of became friends – sort of. We could talk a little openly.” In the documentary he further underlines how, “sometimes a single trip can do so much.” 

The film doesn’t end there, however. Baba foresees the US retreat from Afghanistan in 2021 and the return of the Taliban to power, as well as renewed and heightened violence. Then he returns to an Iran which faces an altogether different crisis, that of Covid-19, while Hilmandi remains in the newly war-torn Afghanistan, at least until he can gain a visa to depart.

The final quarter of the film is desperately moving as Hilmandi is forced to assess a future life even more defined by death and dislocation. His close family have either passed away, or are scattered widely across the world. And he is left to observe how the business of remaining alive is, in itself, a form of resistance at a time “when life is so cheap.”

In interview, Hilmandi reflects to Business Doc Europe on his difficulties in making the film.

“Many times, I was about to give up. I was cursing myself. What the hell am I doing? Why am I making such a film, such a difficult concept? My father was such an authoritarian character,” he says. “But I just continued. I didn’t give up…and I’m really happy I did my best. I went through that kind of hell to create a bond and not give up, to understand why it was the way it was, why he was like that, or why am I like this, why so many of us have been going through life in that way.”

“My whole life changed. I think I’m a different person right now after so many events, so many ups and downs, emotionally and physically, and more displacement,” he adds.

“But even though I have lost the life I used to have, I am still glad that the film is made. Because I believe these stories should be told, especially by voiceless people from Afghanistan.”

Despite the seriousness of its themes, Paikar is imbued throughout with inherent senses both of beauty and artistry. It opens with a contest between many local villages, shot before the return of the Taliban, during which scores of horsemen compete for the carcass of a goat. It plays out in slow motion, in myriad shades of dusty brown. Elsewhere, a single shot of a peasant during wartime evokes Munch’s Scream, or Eisentein’s desperate nurse on the Odessa Steps. The sequence in Karbala, shot by Hilmandi on a hand-held phone, and encased within an urgent soundscape, is desperate, describing the wild devotion of each pilgrim as they seek to touch to the sacred wall. 

“In my previous work, which is called A Journey into Zero Space, I was more extreme in an experimental and essayistic way,” Hilmandi says. “In this film [Paikar], I tried much more to keep it closer to the narrative, letting the audience follow me with less difficulties. But still, you can experience some of my video art tics, because our brain doesn’t work in a perfect linear way. After we start at point A, we jump to so many places before we arrive at point B.”

I ask Hilmandi if it is a frustration or a relief that the process of ‘being’ in Amsterdam seems so light compared to life in Kabul. Amsterdammers may have their own genuine stuff to worry about, but it’s not war, wholesale massacre, the total denial of woman’s rights, or daily suicide bombers.

“It’s a very interesting question, and one I’ve been facing for so many years,” he responds, adding that he continually experiences a sense of “duality” while in The Netherlands.

“Imagine from one side seeing this Western ease, and with the other eye, seeing where I’m from and what’s happening there. You know, it’s madness. You gotta find your way how to survive through that because it’s really isolating you. It’s the reason why one can become really excluded, because years ago I was much more open. I could easily talk about things. But as years passed I noticed more and more that people actually don’t really get it, what I’m telling them.”

Hilmandi tells how he will return from Iran or Afghanistan, and people will blithely ask him if he’s had a nice time, as if he’s just returned from a summer holiday. Sometimes, the same day, he will attend a red carpet event – homeless, traumatised and exhausted – and will still have to answer these banal enquiries. “The contrast is mind-blowing,” he says.

“They don’t understand what it means when I say, I had an exhibition in Kabul and it was blown up,” he says. “So I started to keep it to myself. And more and more, at a certain point, I realise I haven’t talked for months with anyone. I’ve been just quiet, you know. Long silences.”

“But at the same time, I do realise it’s actually not good. I shouldn’t be silenced,” Hilmandi corrects himself. “I should talk more. We should share more, actually. We should all become more aware what’s going on in the world.”

That said, there remains an inherent dilemma in Hilmandi’s decision to make this film about his father.

“It’s a taboo what I’ve done. It’s really a taboo. No-one talks about such personal stuff, actually. No one will question their father, because you don’t mess with the face of the family. Absolutely, it’s not done,” he says. 

Nevertheless, he felt a sense of imperative to interrogate a subject that reflects the whole dire situation within the country as a whole. “Because I couldn’t find anyone else within such a situation, I have decided to do it myself and choose my own family and go through this, even with the risk of losing my family…Probably some will never talk to me. Maybe some of them will understand. Of course, they will understand in a way that it will be recognisable for them. But I don’t know.”

The family unit, Hilmandi argues, is a microcosm of the country, and truly deconstructing and understanding family dynamics can lead to wiser responses further up the social/political chain. “A lot of troubles and problems are there, so if we understand how family works, maybe we will understand more about the troubles or problems in the country, in the world, within the bigger picture.”

“In a way, deconstruction is, in my opinion, a way to open up and understand these problems. Because knowing the problem means it is already half solved, as they say.”

Paikar is part of IDFA Luminous. Find out more about the Dutch selections at IDFA here.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*film supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
**supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Netherlands Production Incentive