American fugitive cast as actor in “˜Kandahar’

  UCLA Film and Television Archives Iranian filmmaker
Mohsen Makhmalbaf “˜s "Kandahar" screens
today at the James Bridges Theater.

By Azadeh Farahmand
Daily Bruin Contributor

A real life American terrorist and fugitive, Hassan Tantai,
appears in select movie theaters as a star in Iranian director
Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s latest movie “Kandahar.”

At a time when the United States carries the torch in the fight
against terrorism, “Kandahar,” which screens at the
UCLA James Bridges Theater this Thursday, brings a series of
startling surprises in a true-to-life turn of events.

The one character in the film, a humanitarian medical service
provider played by Hassan Tantai, adds a twist to the film’s
message. In 1980, he carried out a political assassination in the
U.S. and immediately escaped to Iran where he fought alongside the
Mujaheddin in Afghanistan. The diplomat assassinated was Ali Akbar
Tabatabai, an outspoken Iranian critic of the Ayatollah
Khomeini’s regime.

The film “Kandahar” picks up 21 years afterward with
Hassan Tantai, who plays “Tabib Sahib,” as a medical
service provider who has traveled to Afghanistan in search of
God.

The film depicts the plight of an Afghan-born Canadian
journalist, Nafas, in her dangerous travels to prevent her sister
from committing suicide under the pressure of the Taliban. Along
her journey, Nafas meets Sahib (Tantai) who assists her in reaching
her destination.

Strong evidence suggesting that the confessed murderer David
Belfield is also the actor Hassan Tantai first appeared in U.S.
news in late December. What at first appeared as suggestion,
quickly turned to certitude.

“The person who appears in the movie
“˜Kandahar’ is David Belfield who became Daoud
Sallahuddin, and who now calls himself Hassan Tantai,” says
Maryland attorney Douglas Gansler of Montgomery County. The
North Carolina-born Belfield was raised a Southern Baptist before
converting to Islam and changing his name to Daoud Salahuddin in
1969.

Hasan Tantai is Belfield’s third acquired name of which
the U.S. authorities are aware.

In an interview conducted in Turkey and aired on
“20/20″ in 1996, Belfield confessed to the murder,
expressing no remorse about it.

“Belfield says that something called the Revolutionary
Council in Iran on behalf of Khomeni ordered the assassination and
paid him four to five thousand dollars to commit it,” Gansler
said. Belfield, who disguised himself as a postman and fatally shot
Tabatabai, was in Iran within 21 hours of committing the political
assassination.

“Obviously it is a big shock to me.  I am shocked by
what I have just learned,” said Robin Lim, the president of
Avatar Films, which distributes “Kandahar” in the
United States. “But I feel that we have to be very careful
not to judge the film (by) what has happened.”

Yet, for the twin brother of the victim, the screening of the
film bears crucial ramifications.

“It is a free country,” said M. R.
Tabatabai. “But a conscionable human being, a person who
is against terrorism, is not going to finance the bloody
misadventure of a terrorist and promote terrorism by paying to see
something “¦ Not seeing it would not be any huge cultural
loss.”

The debate this film has inspired must consider moral choices
with respect to both reception and production of films.

Cheng-Sim Lim, programmer at the UCLA Film and Television
Archive, said that the Archive decided to screen
“Kandahar” prior to the controversy being reported.

“It is really unfortunate, in my mind, that this has
happened,” Lim said. “Nobody condones the murder but to
(say that), because this particular person has been cast in the
film, the film should not be shown, is wrong.”

On Jan. 7, the film’s director issued an extended
statement titled, “Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s perspective
concerning the character of Tabib Sahib in
“˜Kandahar,'” which is posted on his Web site
(www.kandaharthemovie.com):

“As for the question that if I had known he were a
murderer would I have made a film with him or not, I have to say
yes, of course if I knew he were a murderer, I would have made a
film with him about the murder that he had committed, in order (to)
explore why is it that in the civilized and opulent United States,
a black man commits a political assassination and then escapes to a
country like Iran, which has a tense relationship with the United
States,” Makhmalbaf wrote.

The controversy surrounding “Kandahar” and its
opening of the twelfth annual Iranian film series at UCLA
reverberates older issues.

When the first post-revolutionary Iranian film series was held
at the then Melnitz theater in UCLA in 1990, many objected.

“There were people who said that there should be no way
for Iranian (cinema), which would represent a repressive regime, to
be shown at the academic institution,” said Jonathan
Freidlander, outreach director of the Center for Near Eastern
Studies.

In fact, the return of Hasan Tantai to the silver screen about
12 years after the initial protest of the Iranian exile community
to the showing of state-backed Iranian films seems to have come to
a full circle. This is in light of the fact that Parviz Sayad, a
visible spokesperson for those protests, made his feature film
“Mission” based on a fictionalized account of what
follows the very Tabatabai’s murder.

The unease expressed early about the screening of films from
Iran is suggestive of the difficulty in drawing the line between
art and politics. If cinema, an expensive art form, depends on
the support of the state, how can the art in the film be separated
from the politics of the state?

Given its representational capabilities, cinema has arguably far
greater impact than any other art form. In this light, Hassan
Tantai may be right to call the film director the most powerful man
in today’s world in his interview with the September issue of
the Iranian journal “Film Monthly.”

“Kandahar,” which commences the 12th annual series
of the Iranian films at UCLA, will open in the Westside Pavilion
Landmark theater on Jan. 11 in addition to playing at the James
Bridges Theater on Jan. 10.

“I actually think it is an important film because it
highlights for Americans the Taliban oppression in Afghanistan
particularly as it relates to women,” Gansler said.

The revelation of the true-to-life context of the film has led
to higher alertness with respect to broader impending issues.

“I think in a weird way this controversy actually has
benefits,” Cheng-Sim Lim said. “That has to do with
raising all these questions of judgment and morality, and making it
urgent in terms of the film and what it portrays about that
region.”

FILM: “Kandahar” screens at the
UCLA James Bridges
Theater today at 7 p.m.