The Land of the Enlightened (2016)

Thanks for the memories!

Good movie but grossly overrated

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This exceptional film quite caught me by surprise. For some reason, I assumed its focus would be on spirituality -- and it is, but not in the manner I anticipated. What some reviewers have criticized as separate, disjointed narratives colliding with each other may be valid, yet that's the film's genius, I think. Rather than an omniscient narrator drily explaining each situation, the directors largely let the material speak for itself, with minimal intrusion. The character of the separate narratives may be best presented in this way, and most accurately reflect the experience of composing a film on Afghanistan. The result is rather like a well-presented book of diaries of some common experience, in which the editor provides only minimal background information, letting the material speak for itself. It's a refreshing and revealing approach which works quite well, in my opinion. And it's certainly the best film I've seen on Afghanistan.

In the documentary In The Land of the Enlightened two worlds collide visually, technically and spiritually. This is a hybrid documentary, meaning some shots were staged while others focus on the environment of Afghanistan and its people through an observational style. The cast, if you may call it that, are all real people. Some of the action scenes are rehearsed and others are presented as they happen. The blur between fiction and non-fiction is intentional, as Belgium Director and Photographer Pieter-Jan De Pue takes on a non-traditional view of how to craft a true story, with imagines elements that respond to a lived experience of Afghanistan, rather than real-life depictions. Shot over seven years, the documentary focuses on the lives of a group of children who are also fighters. Their lives are all about survival and war in the mountains of Afghanistan. Read more here: https://indieethos.com/2016/09/02/in-the-land-of-the- enlightened/

This film is very effective in conveying the harsh beauty of Afghanistan, using sweeping or time-lapsed shots of the barren landscape and mountain ranges. It also shows the people of these remote regions and some of their daily activities, and it paints a powerful picture of a country scarred by war.The narrative, if you would call it that, is about a few groups of children who live as bands of robbers and miners. Their stories are obviously fictional and fantastic. Interspersed with scenes with the children is footage of US and Afghan soldiers, some of it actual combat footage. The scenes with military personnel are undoubtedly not staged, but cut in a way that they loosely fit the film. A few scenes are played by actors portraying soldiers.Initially, I was mesmerized by the images of the landscape and people. But as the movie dragged on, there was very little I could relate to story-wise. It all seemed very random to me, a collection of scenes with no real direction or cohesion. Sure, one of the children has a dream he is pursuing, but to me that was not enough to carry the film.I should think that the real stories of the people in the film are probably much more interesting and worth telling. The kids looked like they had fun acting though.Apparently this took seven years to make. Since the actors did not age at all during the story, I would say six years worth of collected footage was combined with a weak narrative shot in a few months, to warrant a theatrical release. Interesting but it lacked substance.

-In this seamless blend of fictional and documentary form, we experience a stunning cinematic journey into the beauty of war-tormented Afghanistan. Shot over seven years on evocative 16mm footage, first-time director Pieter-Jan De Pue paints a whimsical yet haunting look at the condition of Afghanistan left for the next generation. As American soldiers prepare to leave, we follow De Pue deep into this hidden land where young boys form wild gangs to control trade routes, sell explosives from mines left over from war, and climb rusting tanks as playgrounds-making the new rules of war based on the harsh landscape left to them. De Pue's transportative and wonderfully crafted film confronts the visceral beauty and roughness of survival, serving as a testament to the spirited innovation of childhood and the extreme resilience of a people and country. - Sundance Film Festival Credits ***The fact that it took 7 years in order to film this documentary explains many why this documentary went so much higher than the initial budjet, but that a great deal of money would be assumed for the images showed raises objection.***