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tA L0 EAV AWA 1 LACL15
or sleep. I was so desperate to help, but
look glamorous for the all-female par-
I thought, (I'm a hairdresser, what can
ties where they could safely remove
their burkas. Skilled hairdressers
I do?" She says the school answered
were paid 10 times more than physi-
her question.
But some of the teachers "prove that
.cians, cosmetology remains the most
lucrative career for women in Kabul,
altruism and ugly American behavior
aren't incompatible as Slant -maga-
Mermin says.
The project pushed her activist but- zine noted.
"There were definitely moments
tons. Her parents were Cornell profes-
sors who linked Judaism, in part, to
when I was cringing behind the cam-
social justice. Her mother, she says,
era," Mermin says. In one scene, a
helped spearhead Cornell's African-
spiky-haired American barks, "You're
in a rut, guys:' when pupils don't wear
American studies classes.
Mermin studied African, French and
makeup to class.
American literature at Harvard and •
"The teachers were demonstrating
explored Senegal's emerging free press how to shampoo and use hairdryers,
and cinema on a 1993 Fulbright
scholarship. She profiled gun-tot-
ing pro-choice activists in Hostile
Ground.
The women she spotlighted in
Kabul were even more vulnerable.
When Mermin began production
there in 2003 — amid sandstorms
and 110-degree heat — she shot
images of men glaring through
windows of the school, which
Liz Mermin
was protected by armed guards
and a helicopter.
She kept mum about her
when most Afghan salons don't have
Judaism, though she says she heard
electriCity or running water:' Mermin
no anti-Semitic or anti-Israel rhetoric
throughout her three-month stay. (The adds. "Many function with just one
one time a woman asked her religion,
comb and wooden sticks instead of
the translator didn't know the word for perm rods:'
Mermin says she often cut away to
Jew.) She says she never felt she was in
any real danger.
students staring blankly or amusedly
at their teachers, to create a gently
satirical tone.
Gently Satirical
So far, the film has earned over-
After 21 Students were selected from
whelmingly good reviews (the New
hundreds of applicants, she filmed
York Times called it "hilarious" and
women unfurling their stories along
with their hair curlers. Fauzia, who
"moving"), although the Independent
chastised the school for targeting
married at 14, says she had hoped to
lifelesS hair rather than saving lives.
become a doctor before the Taliban
Mermin agrees, to a point, stating that
kicked women out of schools. She
if she were to donate funds to Afghan
made good money as a hairdresser,
relief, it would not be to the beauty
since women were eager to look as
school.
coiffed as they had when Kabul was a
But she does take offense at the sug-
modern city. But when customers left
gestion that her film is propaganda
the salons, the burkas went back on.
for what Americans have done for
"I saw them cut off hands and feet,"
Afghanistan. "They simply tIon't get
another student says of women who
had painted nails. "I saw three women the irony in the film,"she says. El
in burkas doused with gasoline and
set on fire
Meanwhile, Afghan-American
The Beauty Academy of Kabul
teacher Shaima Ali cries with the
screens 7 p.m. Sunday and 7:30
widows in class, describing how her
p.m. Monday, April 23-24, at
own husband. was murdered during
the Detroit Film Theatre in the
the Soviet occupation.
Detroit Institute of Arts. $6.50-
"When I saw the devastation of
$7.50. (313) 833-3237.
the [common] people after Sept. 11,
1 felt so guilty for being alive Ali, 49,
said in an interview. "I could not eat