Stray Dogs: A moving film
Posted by: acad tsunami on 02 January 2007
Stray Dogs: A moving film
A few days ago I watched the DVD of a very moving film called Stray Dogs. I had thought to simply mention the film briefly on ‘Which was the last DVD you watched?’ thread but I doubt many of you would watch the film on my say so and as I have not been able to get this film out of my mind I thought I would give it it’s own thread in the hope some of you take the time to read this.
I have taken much of the following from a website and edited it in places.
Set in post-Taliban Afghanistan, a young boy Zahed (aged 10) and his sister Gol-Gothai (aged 6), struggle to fend for themselves on the streets of Kabul, searching for scraps and wood on a rubbish tip for anything that might be salvageable or even used to burn for keeping warm on the cold winter nights.
The children recognise their own circumstances in a stray dog that they rescue from a group of boys chasing it down the street with burning torches with the intent to kill it. The children are homeless but what food they can find they share with the dog.
Their father was a Taliban but he is now locked up in an American prison. Their mother is also in prison for having remarried when her husband disappeared without trace for 6 years to fight a Holy War, a crime that will condemn her to being branded a whore and burned to death. Thanks to a friendly guard however, the children are able to spend the nights locked up in a prison cell with their mother.
However, when a new guard takes over they are thrown out and stoned by the guard who tells them their mother is a whore. The little girl appeals to the guard for kindness and understanding but they are left to wander the dangerous streets, the only means they can see of being re-united with her is to commit a crime themselves.
All the children want here are two things – forgiveness - for their father to forgive their mother, in other words for people to put the ways of the past behind them and move on – and shelter from the cold. Simple things, but not small things, they are however two commodities that seem to be increasingly in short supply in modern-day Afghanistan.
Eventually the two children are told by another street boy that they can learn how to commit a crime by watching the Italian film ‘Bicycle thieves’ which is showing in town. They spend their last pennies on tickets and having watched the film set about stealing a bike. The boy is arrested and bundled into a police truck with his tiny sister left to run after the truck calling out that she too is a bicycle thief and should also be locked up as a criminal.
The reality of the situation is finally brought home to the boy as he realises he has not been put in the same prison as his mother and that his sister is now totally alone on the streets.
The final scene sees the little girl exhausted from running across town still holding her dog. She desperately bangs on the door of the prison and a guard calls out from inside ‘who is it’?
‘It’s me’, the tiny girl calls back, desperate to be admitted ‘it’s me, the sister of the bicycle thief’ and then the film abruptly ends. No warning. It just ends. The credits role.
The girl was utterly alone with no family, no one to care for her, nowhere to sleep and no money and I was shocked by the ending, its abruptness and harshness. I couldn’t get it out of my mind and even woke up during the middle of night unable to get her final words out of my head. I told myself ‘hey it’s just a film’ but it is not just a film at all. Millions of children live like this, street children, cold, hungry, shoeless, robbed, abused, raped, exploited and even hunted like animals and murdered.
I am not a wealthy man, in fact my income is pitiful but my life is way better than the life of street children. In the morning after I watched this heartbreaking film I arranged to donate a small amount on a monthly basis to a children’s charity and I ask those of you on the forum to do the same and start 2007 with a good dead. Every contribution helps. Even £5 per month. Please. UNICEF
A few days ago I watched the DVD of a very moving film called Stray Dogs. I had thought to simply mention the film briefly on ‘Which was the last DVD you watched?’ thread but I doubt many of you would watch the film on my say so and as I have not been able to get this film out of my mind I thought I would give it it’s own thread in the hope some of you take the time to read this.
I have taken much of the following from a website and edited it in places.
Set in post-Taliban Afghanistan, a young boy Zahed (aged 10) and his sister Gol-Gothai (aged 6), struggle to fend for themselves on the streets of Kabul, searching for scraps and wood on a rubbish tip for anything that might be salvageable or even used to burn for keeping warm on the cold winter nights.
The children recognise their own circumstances in a stray dog that they rescue from a group of boys chasing it down the street with burning torches with the intent to kill it. The children are homeless but what food they can find they share with the dog.
Their father was a Taliban but he is now locked up in an American prison. Their mother is also in prison for having remarried when her husband disappeared without trace for 6 years to fight a Holy War, a crime that will condemn her to being branded a whore and burned to death. Thanks to a friendly guard however, the children are able to spend the nights locked up in a prison cell with their mother.
However, when a new guard takes over they are thrown out and stoned by the guard who tells them their mother is a whore. The little girl appeals to the guard for kindness and understanding but they are left to wander the dangerous streets, the only means they can see of being re-united with her is to commit a crime themselves.
All the children want here are two things – forgiveness - for their father to forgive their mother, in other words for people to put the ways of the past behind them and move on – and shelter from the cold. Simple things, but not small things, they are however two commodities that seem to be increasingly in short supply in modern-day Afghanistan.
Eventually the two children are told by another street boy that they can learn how to commit a crime by watching the Italian film ‘Bicycle thieves’ which is showing in town. They spend their last pennies on tickets and having watched the film set about stealing a bike. The boy is arrested and bundled into a police truck with his tiny sister left to run after the truck calling out that she too is a bicycle thief and should also be locked up as a criminal.
The reality of the situation is finally brought home to the boy as he realises he has not been put in the same prison as his mother and that his sister is now totally alone on the streets.
The final scene sees the little girl exhausted from running across town still holding her dog. She desperately bangs on the door of the prison and a guard calls out from inside ‘who is it’?
‘It’s me’, the tiny girl calls back, desperate to be admitted ‘it’s me, the sister of the bicycle thief’ and then the film abruptly ends. No warning. It just ends. The credits role.
The girl was utterly alone with no family, no one to care for her, nowhere to sleep and no money and I was shocked by the ending, its abruptness and harshness. I couldn’t get it out of my mind and even woke up during the middle of night unable to get her final words out of my head. I told myself ‘hey it’s just a film’ but it is not just a film at all. Millions of children live like this, street children, cold, hungry, shoeless, robbed, abused, raped, exploited and even hunted like animals and murdered.
I am not a wealthy man, in fact my income is pitiful but my life is way better than the life of street children. In the morning after I watched this heartbreaking film I arranged to donate a small amount on a monthly basis to a children’s charity and I ask those of you on the forum to do the same and start 2007 with a good dead. Every contribution helps. Even £5 per month. Please. UNICEF