By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
April 18, 2015
Tell Spring Not to Come This Year, the new movie that made its North American debut this month at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, shows the travails of a unit in the Afghanistan National Army.
To make the film, co-directors Saeed Taji Farouky and Michael McEvoy embedded with a battalion in the army, which began taking full responsibility for national security in 2014. Thanks to McEvoy, who formally served the United Kingdom in Afghanistan as a liaison between the British and Afghanistan army, the pair had unique access to a group of soldiers and their commander. The men in their film, despite being well-meaning and willing to serve and sacrifice for their nation, struggle to bring security and stability to a land with few national institutions.
At times, Tell Spring Not to Come makes Afghanistan’s deficits seem achingly clear. A caption in the film informs the audience that Afghanistan had never had an official national military until the Western powers that invaded the country in 2002 helped form one the following year. (I found that quite startling.) Early on, an officer gives a speech to his troops about some young soldiers, evidently on leave, who were pulled from their homes and killed by Taliban fighters. Later, as the unit is about to deploy to a combat zone, a soldier tells his commander that the men aren’t afraid, but they are upset about not having been paid for the past nine months.
MEMwrites 