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Beauty Academy of Kabul, The
EMAILPRINTShadow Distribution Inc.

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 3 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Directed by: Liz Mermin
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 24, 2006
DVD: December 19, 2006
Running Time: 74 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Language(s): English / Farsi (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
A group of American hairdressers head to Afghanistan to open the country's first post-Taliban beauty school.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: On Hostile Ground
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
The teachers have moxie. The students have courage. Mermin's warm, funny, beautiful and deeply humane documentary certainly honors the latter.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
So laugh all you want at the proud haircutters of Beauty Without Borders - but don't underestimate what a basic cut and color can mean for a country's future.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
Mermin presents all this without editorial comment, and her film would be worth watching if only for its look at a profound culture-clash. But it goes one better, and delves into one of those clashing cultures, capturing it in a moment of change that goes far beyond one beauty academy's superficial concerns.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
Ultimately, Mermin's film is a profound reminder of the things that make us human. Things that don't matter much, in the scheme of things, but loom large when taken away. Things we all have in common.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
A spiny, puzzling and highly entertaining film, and whatever you go into it thinking, you're likely to come out thinking something else.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis
Liz Mermin documents the hilarious, moving and sometimes fractious meeting of diametrically different cultures, one that has suffered unimaginable horrors and one that believes a good perm is the answer to everything.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The documentary takes on its own engaging shape - one of edgy editorial and political ambivalence.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
As they talk between classes about oppressive husbands, abusive brothers and arranged marriages, it becomes clear that the frivolities Americans take for granted can be their lifeline. In this tentatively hopeful setting, a single lipstick becomes leverage.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Winda Benedetti
An often touching and always intriguing look at the fall and rebirth of a nation and the resilient spirit of its women.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Queen Latifah, the star of Barbershop 2 and Beauty Shop, and thus our reigning monarch of big-screen beauty stylists, should fund and narrate a sequel. Because The Beauty Academy of Kabul is good enough to make you want to know how they do.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
It's that gulf between earnest idealism and beaten-down realism that's the unexpected drama of Beauty Academy.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Without editorializing, Mermin raises fascinating questions about the cultural impact of globalization, the allure of the West, and the troubled history of an ancient land.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
There's great charm, and also discomfort, in watching these highly motivated, excited women learn the tricks of a trade practiced very differently from their own, and casually swap horror stories of life under the Taliban.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The questionably good news put forth in this documentary is that vanity apparently survives everything.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Democracy might not really come from a bottle of shampoo, but "Beauty Academy" teaches us that, sometimes, mascara really matters.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
The film's unforgettable stars are the beauty academy's students, women who have survived tribal warfare, Soviet invasion, Muslim tyranny, American bombs, patriarchal families and even Western good intentions with extraordinary grace and fortitude.
Read Full Review >Variety Ronnie Scheib
In an act of "selfless service," a group of American women, backed by industry giants like Clairol and Vogue, open a beauty school in war-ravaged Afghanistan. The anomalies are manifold: Gun-toting soldiers patrolling the streets are visible through the windows as rookie beauticians busily snip, perm and tweeze.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
The idea isn't as odd as it might first appear, since running a salon is one of the few socially acceptable means for a woman in Afghanistan to earn an income. The execution, however, evokes a particularly outlandish Christopher Guest mockumentary.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis
This quirky documentary about a group of American hairdressers who establish exactly that shows that the power of hair salons should never be underestimated.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
Debbie, for better or for worse, is the high point of the entertaining but lightweight film, which is better suited to public TV than the big screen. Oh, yes. If anybody should decide to open another beauty school in Kabul, be sure to leave Debbie in Indiana.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
How ironic that one form of beauty would be returned to battle-scarred Afghanistan by ugly Americans, but that's just what director Liz Mermin caught in her slim 2004 documentary for the BBC.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
At its best, Mermin -- who used an all-female crew -- conveys the sense of an entirely feminine world being created under the beauty school roof, and it's refreshing.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jen W. gave it a2:
This movie was disturbing on many levels, but NOT for the reasons one might expect. The shallowness and total lack of cultural understanding or sensitivity emeplified by the stereotypical rich white women "saving" Afghanistan one haircut at a time left me deeply saddened upon realizing that this movie was not a parody.
