Joyce Glasser reviews Hollywoodgate (August 16, 2024) Cert 12A, 91 mins. In cinemas.
In some of the best documentaries directors take us on an unpredictable journey and are as surprised at their discoveries as is the audience. But Hollywoodgate might be the only documentary where the filmmaker lives in constant fear for his life, where his subjects watch him as closely as he watches them and where after the big climactic scene, the filmmaker flees for his life.
Days after the Taliban took power in Kabul on August 21, 2001, 34-year-old Egyptian investigative journalist-turned-filmmaker Ibrahim Nash’at spent seven months in Afghanistan. Armed with only his camera, with an Afghan translator on it, he arrived in Kabul ‘to see in whose hands this was left.’
Hollywoodgate is part of the ruins of the American military complex in Kabul, but there are no film stars, mansions, palm trees or designer boutiques. The title might throw you but it’s one of many surreal aspects of this jaw-dropping tour inside the male-only governing body as it makes the transition from insurgency to military regime, seeking recognition as a country on the world stage.
A stark, and with the gift of hindsight, poignant, caption reminds us that after 9/11 US and NATO forces invaded Afghanistan helping to overthrow the Taliban for their role in harbouring Al Qaeda. Two decades later, the Taliban were back after one of the most chaotic, cruel and criticised “handovers” of power in history.
Then Nash’at’s soft-spoken voice tells us that, relying on contacts from his journalism career, and under constant surveillance, he’s been granted access to follow the high ranking commander, Malawi Mansour, Commander of the Air Force, and one ground soldier, Lieutenant Jawad Mukhtar, at Kabul Air Base. In exchange, the Taliban want to see and approve all his footage. Nash’at, however, was not there to make a free propaganda film and there was no premiere for his film in Kabul.
At first there is something of Monty Python in the proceedings and Nash’at probably cannot believe his luck that the militants’ ad hoc remarks are far better than any script he could have come up with. At one point when Mansour wants to set a budget for the transport costs, the estimate is 100 per Afghan employee per month and they would need 67 men. Coming up with the total is more of a challenge, with one soldier telling his boss it’s 61, while another corrects him, saying it’s 67. Another voice speculates it’s 210,000, until a final calculation of 67,000 is agreed on.
As they wander through the military base the Taliban look awestruck at all that the Americans left behind, including a fully equipped gym. Mansour notes, ‘we must use this gym to train our soldiers.’
They are no less astonished at the amount of medicine in the medical supply room, with Mansour telling the large entourage of bearded, turbaned, sandalled soldiers to take stock of the medicine before the expiration dates. It is some small consolation to Western viewers that this order is not carried out.
There is also some initial comfort in witnessing the Taliban’s ignorance or lack of technical sophistication. Coming across large drawers of small electronic pieces, one soldier asks hopefully if they are mine detectors. Another breaks the news that they’re walkie talkies.
At one point we hear someone ask about Nash’at and why he is filming. ‘He’s making a documentary,’ is the reply although that needs amplification. ‘It’s like a film but with real people.’ The suspicious officer is reassured that ‘if [Nash’at’s] intentions are bad, he will die.’
Mukhtar declares that ‘the American’s have left us a treasure,’ adding that ‘if the Taliban had the same they would rule the world.’ As their first year in power unfolds, they prove a lot more resourceful, somehow acquiring the technical know-how they need to make use of the treasures, estimated to be worth some $7 billion.
It is when we see the number and variety of aircraft, armoured vehicles and defensive systems stretching as far as the eye can see that Mukhtar’s dream hits home. The equipment was disabled and parts missing or destroyed, but engineers and machinists work at a frightening fast pace.
Already, the American M16 rifles are a tangible boon, as Mukhtar and others realise shooting away with glee on a mountainous shooting range. The AK 47’s are so much lighter than the Russian Kalashnikovs that you know they will use them to kill a group of rebels reported to be hiding in the mountains. They show Nash’at the caves where they lived ‘so the Jews wouldn’t detect us’. Mukhtar laughs, ‘hey Jews, you lost your war.’
At a Q & A Nash’at tells us that the absence of women in the film was regrettable, but too dangerous, both for Nash’at and for the women. Early on in the film we see a cluster of women in full Burqas in the public square, perhaps begging or asking about their loved ones. In any event guards begin beating them with their rifles. Nash’at is told that ‘an uncovered woman is like an unwrapped chocolate: it’s dirty.’
It is while filming a Russian styled military parade ‘to celebrate the anniversary of our liberation’ that Nash’at is noticed by Taliban officials unaware of his arrangement with Mansour. With delegations from Russia, Iran and China invited to the display (including the “suicide bomb battalion”), the chilling spectacle Nash’at has captured will be prompting some policy discussions from Washington to Westminster.
