FRONTLINE DIARIES: INTO THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (TV)
Summary
This documentary follows journalist Sebastian Junger and veteran war photographer Reza as they mount a trip to the front lines of the war between Afghanistan's Northern Alliance and the ruling Taliban, searching for the country's "soul" and trying to determine its future. A narrator opens the film by providing some biographical information on Junger and Reza. Junger, who wrote the bestselling book "The Perfect Storm," has been "fascinated with danger and harsh conditions" since he was a young man in suburban New England and later covered "hot spots" like Bosnia and Sierra Leone in his journalistic career. Reza has become renowned for his photos of people and places in crisis, and he also happens to be an expert on Afghanistan. The two men, the narrator explains, were teamed together by National Geographic and sent off on assignment to Afghanistan. Reza explains that he has a decades-old friendship with Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader and rebel who helped in defeating the Soviets in the 1980s and whose opposition to Taliban forces has recently earned him the nickname "the Lion of Panshir." Reza and Junger set off from Munich to meet Massoud and get a firsthand look at his group's battles against the regime. The journalists are smuggled into the largely inaccessible Afghanistan aboard a helicopter that flies straight through Taliban airspace. When they land, they visit refugee camps housing thousands of displaced citizens, and Reza is "outraged" at the dangerous conditions and illness. They finally make their way to Massoud, who welcomes them but warns that they are putting themselves in danger by coming to Afghanistan, and Junger marvels at his presence and authority, saying that he is someone that "you never want to disappoint."
Born in Kabul in 1953, Massoud joined the resistance movement as a young man and is now the "last man standing" against the Taliban, his forces controlling on 15% of the country's land. Barely sparing a moment for sleep, he works on his battle strategies and sends a doctor off to the refugee camp. When Massoud, Junger and Reza explore the front one afternoon, they almost immediately find themselves in a the middle of a massive firefight. Junger shoots most of the fight with his camcorder while crouched in a trench as explosions echo all around him. The Northern Alliance soldiers, jaded by years of combat, laugh when Junger and Reza become frightened of the nearby explosions. The journalists make it out of the firefight intact, but then come across a field hospital housing many victims of land mines, and Junger is shaken when he sees the carnage and realizes how few supplies they have when a young man dies of his injuries. Elsewhere, however, in the Panjshir Valley, Massoud plans to build schools for both boys and girls, and the people have more hope, with one woman expressing her frustration with the Taliban's strict rules against women's rights and declaring her intention to combat them. Massoud's prisoners of war matter-of-factly explain their plans for taking over the Middle East, but Massoud remains determined to "outlast" the Taliban, committed to survival rather than to aggressive tactics.
Details
- NETWORK: National Geographic Channel
- DATE: September 25, 2001 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:49:32
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:70414
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Public affairs/Documentaries; Afghanistan; War
- SERIES RUN: National Geographic Channel - TV Series, 2001-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- David Royle … Executive Producer
- Jenny Apostol … Supervising Producer
- Richard MacKenzie … Producer
- Charles Poe … Producer
- Jody Schiliro … Producer, Writer
- Jenny Kubo … Associate Producer
- Cottrell-Magnum Music … Music by
- Joe Morton … Narrator
- Reza Deghati
- Sebastian Junger
- Ahmed Shah Massoud