The title isn't a joke. And no, it's nowhere near as frivolous as you'd think.
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04/28/06
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The Beauty Academy of Kabul (2006)
87
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:53
Fresh:46
Rotten:7
Average Rating:6.9/10
Consensus: There's nothing frivolous about beauty school when hearing about the individual lives of these women in Afghanistan, and the contrast between them and the idealistic beauticians from America.
Rated: Not Rated
Genre: Education/General Interest
Theatrical Release:Mar 24, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: After the Taleban's fall, a group of American beauticians take their curling irons to Afghanistan to open the country's first beauty school. --© BBC Films
Director: Liz Mermin
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Reviews for The Beauty Academy of Kabul
Most of the students had suffered or witnessed horrific abuses and crimes under the Taliban, yet the film shows two fatuous U.S. instructors who clearly missed the sensitivity training.
12/15/06
a spiny, puzzling and highly entertaining film, and whatever you go into it thinking, you're likely to come out thinking something else.
12/15/06
Top CriticThe film's unforgettable stars are the beauty academy's students, women who have survived tribal warfare, Soviet invasion, Muslim tyranny, American bombs, patriarchal families and even Western good intentions with extraordinary grace and fortitude.
04/06/06
... a light and lively fly-on-the-wall piece that is occasionally aware of its own absurdity ...
04/28/06
An example of fascinating material that frequently triumphs over its pedestrian presentation.
05/04/06
Top Critic... a documentary whose superficial image belies its profound impact.
04/28/06
Top CriticSurprisingly, The Beauty Academy of Kabul provides equal insight into both cultures, showing how excessive, self-obsessed disconnect can shape a culture as strongly as a hideously intruding reality.
04/28/06
Top CriticWhere there's makeup and hairspray, there's hope. The film draws on your sympathy, but it could play just as easily on PBS as it would on the big screen.
04/28/06
... unlike Dead Poets, this film is actually focused on the students and interested in their attempts to take control of their own destinies.
04/27/06
A skin deep in beauty documentary with hairdressers as healers.
12/24/06
Yes, (Mid)west is (Mid)west and (Mid)east is (Mid)east, but the twain do meet -- sort of -- in this fascinating, unassuming little film.
06/15/06
Top CriticMermin vividly explores both the beauty within its walls and the dangers outside.
03/24/06
There's great charm, and also discomfort, in watching these highly motivated, excited women learn the tricks of a trade practiced very differently from their own, and casually swap horror stories of life under the Taliban.
04/27/06
Mermin's docu neither makes light of the project nor suggests that it will bring large-scale change, instead it focuses on the moments of camaraderie the develop between women who share commitment to hair despite cultural differences.
05/08/06
Mermin's straightforward, no-frills account of how a group of American hair stylists taught their craft to Afghan women recently emerging from Taliban rule is admirably solicitous toward both teachers and students.
03/24/06
Top CriticClick to read the article
04/23/09
Director Liz Mermin documents the hilarious, moving and sometimes fractious meeting of diametrically different cultures, one that has suffered unimaginable horrors and one that believes a good perm is the answer to everything.
03/23/06
Top CriticThat the film is even this watchable has to do more with the subjects themselves.
05/19/06
Can be a frustrating experience because of representation issues.
05/04/06
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