This week’s journey through my Letterboxd Map takes us to Afghanistan for Three Songs for Benazir.
Title: Three Songs for Benazir
Directors: Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei
Premiered: June 2, 2021 (United States – Full Frame Documentary Film Festival)
Runtime: 24 minutes
Shaista is a young man who also happens to be a husband and father. He is constantly serenading his wife and mother of his children, Benazir. She loves the songs and always laughs with joy when Shaista sings for her.
The couple are doing their best while living in a camp for displaced persons in Kabul, Afghanistan. A constant reminder of why they’re there, in the form of a spy balloon, hovers over the camp day and night. Shaista tells Benazir that it was sent by the Americans to watch them. He goes a step further in saying that they’ll inevitably either be bombed by the Americans or killed by the Taliban.
He wants to make a difference while building a better life for his family and decides to join the Afghan National Army. Immediately, his family members scoff at the idea. Shaista isn’t educated, there’s no way they’ll accept him. His place is in the poppy fields like all the other uneducated kids his age.
Shaista decides to go down to the recruitment office and try to enlist. He’s handed forms for an educated elder or relative to fill out and sign on his behalf. Once he brings the forms back, he’ll be shipped off to training.
Now all he has to do is talk someone in the camp into filling out the forms for him.
Having a documentary that spans multiple years and tells a coherent and impactful story in only 24 minutes is quite an accomplishment. As the viewer, you’re quickly given a reason to care about Shaista and Benazir, that investment remains constant throughout.
There are deliberate editing choices made that help to earn the emotional impact they deliver rather than manufacturing it. Because of this, everything feels grounded in experiences that feel almost universal. We’re then quickly reminded just how much geography and pure circumstance can determine one’s life.
Three Songs for Benazir is one I discovered because of this Letterboxd Map project. Finding films like this is exactly why I chose to take this worldwide journey.