Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi have followed Mir for two decades in what is almost a brutal companion piece to Richard Linklater\u2019s Boyhood<\/p>\n
This documentary following one boy\u2019s life in Afghanistan feels like a brutal, desperately sad companion piece to Richard Linklater\u2019s Boyhood. Its co-directors, the British documentary-maker Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi, first started filming Mir Hussein aged seven in 2002, and they haven\u2019t stopped. They have already made two previous films \u2013 The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan<\/a> (2004) and The Boy Mir: Ten Years in Afghanistan<\/a> (2011) \u2013 and this third gives us the complete picture: Mir pulled along by time\u2019s current from boyhood to the present day, married with three kids in Kabul. To be honest, it\u2019s the opposite of life-affirming.<\/p>\n The story begins in 2002, a year after 9\/11. US troops have landed in Afghanistan. Seven-year-old Mir is living with his family in a cave in Bamiyan, having fled their village. They are grindingly poor, but little Mir giggles as he shows the film-makers his \u201cbedroom\u201d in the cave. He grins as a fighter jet roars overhead. \u201cWe thought that the Americans would rebuild our country,\u201d Mir remembers on the voiceover, without a trace of bitterness.<\/p>\n