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'Jung' Puts A Face On Suffering In Afghanistan
JUNG (WAR) IN THE LAND OF THE MUJAHEDEEN
The New York Post, November 23, 2001
By JONATHAN FOREMAN

'It will always be the same. They will always fight each other. They will always need war to live."So says Ettore Mo, an old hand at Afghan war reporting and one of the subjects of this timely, powerful but underedited and messily structured documentary.

The filmmakers - Alberto Vendemmiati, Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Giuseppe Petitto - went to Afghanistan three times between February 1999 and May 2000.

Originally, they went to document the war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.

But on their way there they hooked up with Mo, who was helping Gino Strada, an Italian doctor, and an English nurse, set up a hospital for the war-wounded in Northern Alliance (or Mujahedeen) territory.

The heart of this film then became the story of the medics and their patients, though its structure and its lovingly shot combat scenes suggest that the filmmakers were in two minds as to what its subject should be.

Much of the Afghan civil war footage is rather less exotic than it would have been three months ago: American TV viewers are now familiar with the women who still wear pale blue burquas in case the Taliban come back, handsome green-eyed, pale skinned Afghani children, and men in flat chitrali caps haphazardly firing into the distance.

Here is President Rabbani of the Northern Alliance, there is Gen. Massoud who was murdered - most likely by Osama bin Laden - the weekend before the World Trade Center attack.

But what is less familiar is the footage shot at the hospital set up by Strada and his wonderful "Emergency" organization - and the horror of seeing child after child with amputated limbs from Taliban land mines.

It's hard to remember anything more gruesome and unforgettable than a scene in a which a boy is brought into a makeshift hospital, pleading for an anesthetic as the bandage comes off the bloody, shredded remains of his foot.

The film is actually two Italian TV documentaries put together - after the first was shown, Italian viewers donated $200,000 for the hospital whose operations are depicted in the second episode.

Given the drama and importance of the subject matter, it's a shame so much time is wasted with repetitive background "color" calls to prayer, men firing rocket launchers at some distant target, etc.

The fact that so much of the material is filmed in a show-offy MTV-influenced way - with lots of slow-motion or speeded-up motion flourishes - further detracts from the film's overall impact.

Still, "Jung" is an important document. Like "Beneath the Veil," it gives a human face to those who have suffered from the Taliban's tremendous cruelty, and those who have been maimed in the war to end their rule.

You're also reminded of the paranoia endemic to this part of the world: When asked why he is fighting the Taliban, one Northern Alliance soldier explains, "They are servants to Pakistan and to America."

"The Taliban serve Pakistan and England," says another. This, of course, was in December 2000.