Opium War (2008)

The story

A helicopter goes down in the Afghan desert. Two American soldiers survive: a white officer and the Black soldier who serves as his aide. Lost, wounded and far from their base, they find themselves at the mercy of the landscape and of the people who live in it.

Those people are a poor Afghan family who have made their home beneath an abandoned Soviet tank, a rusting monument to the last foreign army that tried to control the country. They farm opium poppies and are sinking into debt. The father faces pressure to marry his daughter off to armed militiamen, whose loyalties the film deliberately leaves unclear: Taliban, criminals or something in between.

As the soldiers and the family circle each other, the film moves between farce and tragedy, showing people on every side caught in a war none of them controls.

Why a black comedy

After the stark realism of Osama, Barmak said openly that he wanted to change register:

“Next time, I want to show reality another way; maybe a black comedy.”

Opium War is the result. Writing in Qantara.de, the critic Martin Gerner described a film that uses fantasy to expose the dullness of reality. Its images are often absurd: in one scene a newborn baby is placed in a ballot box during an election, a sharp comment on the democracy that outsiders promised Afghanistan. Opium is used as a painkiller by soldiers and villagers alike.

Growing real poppies for the camera

Barmak wanted the poppy fields to be real. He obtained permission from the Afghan government, and filming also needed the approval of the international security force, ISAF. The production grew its own field of opium poppies, and Afghan eradication teams twice tried to destroy the set.

“During the course of the filming, the field slowly dried up. Ultimately we burned it.”

Water was another problem. The crew had to dig wells and bring tankers from about 30 kilometers away to keep the shoot going.

What the film says about war

Barmak has insisted that the film is about more than Afghanistan.

“But this film is not only about the war in Afghanistan. I'm trying to show that war in general is a tragedy.”

He also placed responsibility for the opium trade beyond Afghan farmers: “If the West condemns the growing of poppy, it also has to stop buying the drug.” The same interview shows his frustration with foreign reconstruction efforts, which he felt were led by people who did not understand the country.

Festival run and recognition

• Golden Marc'Aurelio Critics' Award for Best Film, Rome Film Festival, October 2008
• Afghanistan's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Academy Awards

After Rome the film was scheduled for European release in 2009 and continued to screen at festivals, including Films from the South in Oslo in 2010.

The same year Hollywood also sent American soldiers into the Afghan desert, in Iron Man. We compare the two films in Afghanistan on screen in 2008: Opium War and Iron Man.

Cast and crew

The cast reunites Barmak with Marina Golbahari, the young star of Osama.

Osama and Opium War side by side