Can be a frustrating experience because of representation issues.
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05/04/06
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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
It's a demonstration of the ancient proverb: Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today, but teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime.
06/03/06
An often touching and always intriguing look at the fall and rebirth of a nation and the resilient spirit of its women.
05/02/06
Any film that raises this many interesting questions is worth seeing, though Beauty Academy never goes quite deep enough to become essential.
07/14/06
Top CriticIt's that gulf between earnest idealism and beaten-down realism that's the unexpected drama of Beauty Academy.
04/21/06
Top CriticDirector 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 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 CriticLike a before and after makeover, The Beauty School of Kabul should have left us in a different place from where we began, but the film left me with more questions than answers.
04/09/06
Sophomore documakers Mermin opens my eyes to the fact that women, everywhere in the world, care about how they look and feel even if no one else ever sees them.
04/20/06
Where 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
Warm, funny and hugely entertaining.
03/24/06
It is that lack of small-minded judgment which distinguishes The Beauty Academy of Kabul and which makes it thoughtful, yet so much fun to watch.
03/01/07
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 CriticMost 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
Top CriticCaptures the essence of Americans' sense of empowerment and innate goodness -- and our cultural myopia.
03/14/07
This quirky documentary about a group of American hairdressers who establish exactly that shows that the power of hair salons should never be underestimated.
04/25/06
Top Critic... 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
The 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
Top CriticThe interaction between the self-absorbed, oblivious hairdressers and their quiet, stubborn, traditional students runs from the hilarious to the heartbreaking.
06/02/06
Mermin is quite skilled at separating the honorable intent of the school from dopey assumptions of several American beauticians.
04/28/06
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