Tell Spring Not to Come This Year

NATO pulled out of Afghanistan in 2014, leaving Afghan army units to carry on fighting without support. Each of the young soldiers has his own reasons for fighting the Taliban. One wanted to study but wasn’t accepted to university, while another was looking for an action-packed life. All of them are convinced that they will succeed where the Americans failed and bring peace and prosperity to their nation.“We should defend our own country,” says one. We watch like flies on the wall as the soldiers play cards in the army tents, and listen in on their interrogations of suspected Taliban members. There is little talk of fear and sorrow, but we learn all we need to know from the moments of unguarded expressions on the boys’ faces. When the Taliban begin an offensive against the strategic city of Sangin, the young soldiers are promised that their mission will be over in 24 hours; it ends up lasting 45 days. We quickly become immersed in the situation: the continuous hail of bullets, the rushing around, the shouting and the barely concealed panic when one of the soldiers is seriously wounded. The film takes a subtle approach to examining not only the point of war, but also the effect of NATO’s interventions and the achievability of peace in Afghanistan.