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Beauty Academy of Kabul, The
Shadow Distribution Inc.


7.3

based on 22 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

On Hostile Ground

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

A group of American hairdressers head to Afghanistan to open the country's first post-Taliban beauty school.

GENRE(S):	Documentary
DIRECTED BY:	Liz Mermin
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 19, 2006 Theatrical: March 24, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	74 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	English / Farsi (with English subtitles)

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...

100

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The documentary takes on its own engaging shape - one of edgy editorial and political ambivalence.

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.

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.

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.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It's that gulf between earnest idealism and beaten-down realism that's the unexpected drama of Beauty Academy.

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.

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.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The questionably good news put forth in this documentary is that vanity apparently survives everything.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Democracy might not really come from a bottle of shampoo, but "Beauty Academy" teaches us that, sometimes, mascara really matters.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Beauty Academy of Kabul, The Shadow Distribution Inc.

Beauty Academy of Kabul, The
Shadow Distribution Inc.