At Five In The Afternoon (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #30.1 extract: At Five In The Afternoon (2003)

With At Five In The Afternoon the two Makhmalbaf sisters present the conflicts and pain of Afghani women in post-Taliban Kabul. This is done with an incredibly distant structural and directorial approach that comes to alienate us as spectators. In such, we are never allowed to truly empathise with our characters because of the restrictive mise en scène and elliptical narrative that jumps past significant beats of conflict as to concentrating on showing a journey. I cannot then say that I enjoyed this film - and it seems to be designed so you do not - but, by extension of this, I felt no connection to the narrative. 

In challenging audience expectations of narrative and character the Makhmalbaf sisters create a film that has much potential, but fails in, intellectually or emotionally, giving wings to all it presents. In short, the distance of this film only pushed me away and never gave me much of a reason to persevere in penetrating its facade.