This movie was quite a shock as I was expecting a typical story of how woman are oppressed , helpless and at mercy of men in a Taliban style Islamist society. But in reality what i found was quite different , story of strong willed woman who knew what they were doing, who knew how to use Sharia Islamic law and who most importantly chose to do take decisions of life despite the odds. That is ground breaking , courageous and really unexpected.It chronicles story of three woman who are in jail for "moral crimes" i.e. doing things which a "good Islamic woman" should not do. First is the girl who had per-martial sex with her boy friend. When the boy refuses to marry her ; she herself surrenders to police and ask herself to put in jail (since sex before marriage is a crime in Islamic Law) . Why she did it? Coz sex before marriage is a crime for a man too and so she is also arrested and then in order to get release from jail he is forced to marry her. Even during marriage as per Sharia law she is entitled to fix her "divorce price" and she asks him as $30000 alimony in case of divorce (which is like a 30 million in Afgan economy) only to make sure that he can not divorce her after marriage . This she does against the wishes of her parents. This is quite remarkable story of courage who know how to twist and manipulate sharia law to advantage of woman! Never knew woman could do this in Islamic world.The second story is of woman who is in jail coz she left her husband home. Again a crime in Islamic law and is arrested with a elderly woman where she seek refuge. This seems harsh at first but later we found that she is arrested by first wife of son of that elderly woman who caught this absconding woman and her husband kissing each other. So she got her husband , her mother in law and this "other woman" arrested . Quite a way to get revenge from husband for cheating :). Now again the easiest route of their release of if the man and this woman with whom she has affair marry each other ; but despite repeated pressure , pleading and coarsening from the landlady this absconding woman stood her ground and refuse to marry the man she was caught kissing. This is even more remarkable that first story as woman chose to be all alone in a man's world , despite knowing she cant return to her parents and have nowhere to go. That idea of a "single woman" in Afagan Taliban society was surprise for me.The third story is even more interesting. A boy and girl , not married to each other is caught by their parents in "compramising situation" . Again since sex before marriage is crime she is arrested but then a medical test confirms that she is still virgin (how do they really do it ? I mean how they make sure? Just curious ) . So she should be set free but then she is charged with sodomy (Anal sex is even bigger taboo in Islam than anything else ) . And in her case since the boy is minor he can't marry her . But despite all this she is unfazed , happy and confidant of her future. She is relaxed coz she know she will find someone else. I was shocked that a young girl in Afagan Taliban society can be so bold about her sexuality and be so casual about it specially with regards to sodomy.As a whole most interesting aspect of this movie was even though they were supposedly criminal , no one saw their moral crimes as serious , woman could openly smoke inside jail, wear tight dresses and discuss about sex. This is not a picture you expect in a society where woman have no freedom. This shows underbelly of Afgan society where woman are aware of their choices , their life and ready to chose their man. This of course will not be true for every Afghan woman but shows the true side of society. Quite an eye-opener and I will say must watch for everyone !!

Love Crimes of Kabul, directed by Tanaz Eshaghian, released in 2011, follows the stories of three women at the Badam Bagh Women's Prison located in Kabul, Afghanistan jailed for "moral crimes." These crimes include running away from home, adultery and premarital sex. We follow these women's journeys from their pretrial prison experience to their sentencing. Through these stories we are given a very small look at the justice system of a country that blends their religious ideals with their moral conduct. The women in this documentary range from late teens to mid-life and their crimes vary from pregnancy from premarital sex to running away from home and seeking refuge in a neighbor's house which could earn them a sentence of 20 years in prison. The function of the documentary is to portray how honor is restored in a society that possesses such strict rules of conduct. Although these inmates are painted as immoral, corrupters of society, there are very few times the viewers feel sympathy toward these women. Western audiences would celebrate these women because it offers a very stereotypical view of Afghani society, but a more informed viewer would question the myopic characterization of these women. The film offers a balanced view of images from both inside the prison and the society outside the prison walls. In prison the women are offered quite a bit of freedom and the prison houses both women and their children, most likely innocent bystanders to their "moral crimes." Love Crimes of Kabul is shot using mostly medium shots of interviews with the inmates and their dialogue with each other. At times the camera is shaky and gives the audience the impression that a small crew filmed these scenes. Although the film focuses more on the crimes of the women, interviews of the male accomplices are also filmed. None of the participants speak English so subtitles are used and at times a translator can be heard. The director was able to capture real emotions evoked during the interviews and dialogues. The filmmakers used very little special effects which contributed to the start representation of live in Afghanistan. The resolution was crisp and pleasing to the viewer's eye which modernized the film and again, contributed to the lack of modernity in Afganistan. When the filmmaker was shooting the trial scenes a low, dutch angle was used to be less intrusive in the scene. I think being a woman, the director was given quite a bit of access in the women's prison, but during the trial of these cases, the film crew was not offered access to these events. During these breaks in footage, the director offered a text track that filled in the gaps of time and story. The film tries to expose a controversial subject, but falls short of evoking support for these women and their situations.

Thousands of miles away, across mountains and oceans and continents, is a country where women are imprisoned for running away from home or having premarital 'relations' with their boyfriends and fiancées. This is the same country which the United States and NATO have spent hundreds of billions of dollars 'defending' from a fundamentalist sect known as the Taliban. This war has been propagandized, in part, as a war for women's rights. In Love Crimes of Kabul we learn precisely how many rights those billions of dollars have so far purchased. Would the plight of women be worse if the Taliban were still running things? Possibly, but it is clear that the present government's concept of 'women's rights' is not even close to something western women would accept.A year or two after 9/11, I remember reading the results of a breathtakingly sexist poll asking American men to rate women's attractiveness on a country by country basis. By a substantial margin, they voted Afghani women the ugliest in the world. This poll was, I believe, a more accurate reflection of America's genuine feelings about the women of Afghanistan: they are a handy political tool, but you wouldn't want your son to marry one. An eye-opening and shocking HBO original documentary, Love Crimes of Kabul even features a woman imprisoned for the crime of 'intending to have sex'. God Bless America.