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I have not been so moved by a film in a long time. Director Pieter-Jan De Pue’s feature cum documentary film delved into Afghanistan’s lost history and society since Western intervention began; however significantly it mediated on the year of American military withdrawal in 2014. Not only did this vividly highlight the disconnection between American policy and Afghani life, it also demonstrated how Western intervention since the USSR occupation in 1989 has polluted this nomadic country into one centred around militarisation, opium and corruption. However it was the documentary aspect of The Land of the Enlightened which significantly unravelled the reality and myths in Afghanistan’s history and our Western understanding.

The movie centres around a group of boys living in rural Afghanistan. They ‘pillage’ camel-caravans crossing their territories for mined lapiz lazuli or opium, then return home to their two girl cooks to prepare their hunted goods and over meals romanticise their next opium steal. Life centres around opium, as it does for the other characters. We move to another rural, peasant community travelling in their camel-caravans which are loaded with illegally mined lapis lazuli rocks and opium. Corruption is shown as an increasingly normalised institution in Afghanistan. Children run across a battlefield collecting empty or unexploded bullets, mortars and improvised explosive devices (IEDs); one child digs around a buried IED, singing to implore it to “be his friend”. However he is already missing a leg, presumably from a previous accident, and when the children sold these empty shells for just over one hundred Pakistani rupees to an older man I felt exasperated by this unnerving scene. Corruption and exploitation has become a normalised reaction to occupation and poverty in Afghanistan, where everyone – even children – are expected to pillage what they can from the remnants of war to survive.

Juxtaposed against this exploitation of military ‘leftovers’, trafficked opium and child labour, is the American army. The soldiers sit in a military base with the US and Afghan troops in an unnamed location in the mountains “shooting up Taliban”, classical Spanish guitar and club-house music playing in the background. Their rhetoric and life centres on Taliban. However the movie stylistically undercuts the emptiness of this word through symbolism and setting characters and scenes against each other to highlight the irony in Western foreign policy. An intense shootout kicks-off from US and Afghan forces towards a far off hill where a Taliban location has been spotted. Above the tenacious shooting and air-raid bombing, a bird flies over the mountain, symbolising the suspended misunderstandings flying around the army air-coms: “I see him, I see him”, “did they get the right location” and “hey – what are we fucking shooting?”. The final scene poignantly shows the real conspirators and victims of this military show. A US soldier is interviewed laying back on sandbags and looking over the mountainous Taliban-occupied hills, ridiculing his Afghani-counterpart’s incessant collection of the empty bullet shells. They collect these for their brass-components to sell “for food, for gasoline – I don’t know, it’s Afghanistan”. His interview overlays the scene which follows the movement of these brass shells; to the local children who trek down the mountain to the local dealer who gives them Pakistani rupees for their steal. This demonstrates the great ironies and gaps within the sense of superiority of Western leaders. The greatest threat to them are these peasants constantly caught in the crossfire of corruption and war, while only wanting to make ends meet.

A scene with an overspread sky of rolling stars repeats itself throughout the film and in the ending moments, it is narrated with an Afghani myth teaching that stars represent each Afghani brother killed by another. This multitude of stars tragically shows that Afghanistan now is literally The Land of the Enlightened. American occupation and civil unrest has made night become day, myth a reality and corruption synonymous with survival. Set against the battle for Mosul from Kurdish, Iraqi and Western coalition forces, The Land of the Enlightened demonstrates that the “shooting up” policy is not as simply a solution. I strongly recommend this documentary-film for its artistic exploration of the impacts of cultural judgements and war in the Middle East.