.Interpreter’s Fate in a Broken Afghanistan
En route to a 2007 interview with a Taliban warlord in Afghanistan, the Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo and his 24-year-old interpreter, Ajmal Naqshbandi, were kidnapped. Mr. Mastrogiacomo was released (in a complicated deal that included the release of five Taliban prisoners and a new road said to have been paid for by the Italian government), but his companion was detained and eventually murdered.
As unsettling and complex as the country it traverses, “Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi,” Ian Olds’s stunning documentary, swings between events surrounding that murder and footage shot six months earlier, when Mr. Naqshbandi, an Afghan journalist, was assisting Christian Parenti of The Nation. With one timeline providing context for the other, the film illuminates not only the extreme dangers faced by journalists and their Afghan facilitators (or, fixers) but also the extreme stasis of a country choking on corruption and barbarism.
Gathering multiple media sources — including repulsive Taliban-produced videos, their full horror barely concealed by an onscreen black box —“Fixer” memorializes a soft-spoken, savvy young man whose motivations remain stubbornly vague. Behind the camera, Mr. Olds works with melancholic artistry, his lens bouncing across fields of cannabis and arid, rubble-strewn roads. Like his terrific 2006 documentary, “Occupation: Dreamland” (which followed a group of American soldiers stationed in Falluja, Iraq), “Fixer” is a deeply disorienting film propelled by a jagged anxiety that permeates every image and interview.
Cradled by a haunting soundtrack, Ajmal Naqshbandi lends a human face to a political tragedy so grand we may prefer to disengage. Mr. Olds would prefer that we not.
FIXER
The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi
Opens on Tuesday in Manhattan.
Directed and edited by Ian Olds; director of photography, Mr. Olds; music by Growing; produced by Mr. Olds and Nancy Roth. At the Maysles Cinema, 343 Malcolm X Boulevard, between 127th and 128th Streets, Harlem. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. This film is not rated.
NYT
As unsettling and complex as the country it traverses, “Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi,” Ian Olds’s stunning documentary, swings between events surrounding that murder and footage shot six months earlier, when Mr. Naqshbandi, an Afghan journalist, was assisting Christian Parenti of The Nation. With one timeline providing context for the other, the film illuminates not only the extreme dangers faced by journalists and their Afghan facilitators (or, fixers) but also the extreme stasis of a country choking on corruption and barbarism.
Gathering multiple media sources — including repulsive Taliban-produced videos, their full horror barely concealed by an onscreen black box —“Fixer” memorializes a soft-spoken, savvy young man whose motivations remain stubbornly vague. Behind the camera, Mr. Olds works with melancholic artistry, his lens bouncing across fields of cannabis and arid, rubble-strewn roads. Like his terrific 2006 documentary, “Occupation: Dreamland” (which followed a group of American soldiers stationed in Falluja, Iraq), “Fixer” is a deeply disorienting film propelled by a jagged anxiety that permeates every image and interview.
Cradled by a haunting soundtrack, Ajmal Naqshbandi lends a human face to a political tragedy so grand we may prefer to disengage. Mr. Olds would prefer that we not.
FIXER
The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi
Opens on Tuesday in Manhattan.
Directed and edited by Ian Olds; director of photography, Mr. Olds; music by Growing; produced by Mr. Olds and Nancy Roth. At the Maysles Cinema, 343 Malcolm X Boulevard, between 127th and 128th Streets, Harlem. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. This film is not rated.
NYT
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