Taliban rule in Afghanistan is a gripping subject that has dominated headlines and non-fiction bestsellers´ lists ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. A number of films have been made on the subject since then, but most of them were documentaries and shorts. Ujjal Chaterjee´s Escape From Taliban is one of the first feature-length films made that tries to tell a story within the context of Taliban rule.

The narrative of the film is loosely based on the first-hand accounts (recorded in a book titled "Kabuliawala´s Bengali Wife") of a woman, Sushmita Bannerjee, who fled from Afghanistan in 1995. The film´s accuracy is questionable, however, and it certainly seems that the filmmakers have taken a quite a bit of cinematic liberty in portraying certain events on celluloid. In fact, recent headlines have it that the Sushmita Bannerjee has lodged legal complaints against the makers of this film and hopes to use money from a settlement to start a new film on her experiences.

This film follows the journey of a Hindu woman (Sushmita Bannerjee, played by Manisha Koirala) from Calcutta who marries a Muslim Afghani man (Jaanbaaz Khan, played by debutante Nawab Khan) in secret and flees with him to Afghanistan to escape the wrath of her family. Once there, she quickly realizes how disturbing the state of affairs in her husband´s country are. Unable to grow accustomed to the treatment of women and eternal political strife in Afghanistan, Sushmita decides to escape back to India. How she manages to escape the clutches of her psychopath in-laws and Taliban officers forms the crux of this drama.  

Unfortunately, the film is not nearly as moving or gripping as the plot may seem to indicate. Director Ujjal Chatterjee fails to make the drama in the film seem the least bit authentic or poignant. Faulty direction and poor acting combine to make even the most intense scenes in the film seem rather trivial. In places where characters should seem genuinely angry or hurt, the film has them looking confused and staid. All of this is made worse by the fact that the dialogs in the film have a penchant for being preachy; the protagonist often breaks into long-winded speeches about freedom, humanity, and non-violence in true Islam. As a result, most of the drama in the film feels forced and weak.

Also, the placement of four full-length songs in the film is downright ridiculous. The songs add absolutely nothing to the film, and in most cases don´t even make sense within the context of the events unfolding on screen. Why would Sushmita stop to appreciate nature and sing and dance to happy song about butterflies while trying desperately to evade a Taliban search party? Situations like these, that turn up often in the film, defy all logic.

Manisha Koirala is about the only positive aspect of the film. Her role offers her quite a bit of scope, and she makes the most of it. Her effort is praise-worthy, but not nearly strong enough to save the film. The rest of the cast is a nightmare to watch. Newcomer Nawab Khan is absolutely expression-less, and fails to evoke emotion in any of his scenes. Aly Khan, who plays a local Taliban officer, is more comical than menacing; he delivers his lines as if he were reading them from cue-cards and sports a beard that looks like it´s going to fall off at any moment.

Production design is quite bad. Sets look entirely synthetic, and it is quite obvious most of the men in the film were wearing glue-on beards. Cinematography by Vivek Banerjee is somewhat commendable; the camera work is actually quite interesting. Background music, on the other hand, is sub-par; it tries hard to sound suspenseful but ends up evoking laughter. The songs in the film by Babul Bose are tuneless and picturizations are likewise bland. Editing by Ujjal Nandi is horrible; scenes are cut together abruptly and songs are thrown in at seemingly random points throughout the narrative.

It´s a shame that Escape from Taliban was so poorly executed. The film features an intruiging subject matter and, with the proper direction, could´ve been quite a thrilling and memorable docu-drama. As it is now, however, the film has little to offer except a good performance by Manisha Koirala.