“The Film Was Shot Between 2005 and 2021 in Afghanistan for the Duration of America’s Longest War, but this is not a war movie.”

I’ve seen a lot of documentaries but none quite like One Bullet.  Carol Dysinger has documented her journey to Afghanistan from 2005-2021. She is part of the subject matter but not totally the subject matter. She ends up getting drawn into her own film whether she wants to or not. That is just a small part of this fascinating film though spoken in Dari and English with subtitles.

The filmmaker was originally embedded with US troops in Afghanistan in 2005 when a stray bullet from an American soldier traveling with a convoy hits a boy named Fahim in the back, paralyzing him. She followed the lead investigator Col Bob Elliot while he traveled around trying to figure out what happened and who was to blame for this tragedy of justice. Little did she know at that time she would be going back to this country and visiting the boy’s family for years to come.

The filmmaker Dysinger starts out trying to make a film about the American war in Afghanistan and ends up making something completely different. Her travels back and forth from her life as a professor to this country on the brink of war were necessary but not fun for her. She ended up talking to the mother, Bibi, and brothers, Nadir and Faraday. She got a different perspective on the boy and how these people feel about her and Americans in general.

Documentaries can sometimes morph into whatever they want. The filmmaker records her subjects and edits the footage along with narration and archival footage or reimaginings to make a film. That can be what she intends or something entirely different. In this case, trying to find out what happened to this boy was less important than how his family reacted to the tragedy and what their thoughts were about what most Muslims call the infidels. 

Dysinger was warmly welcomed into this woman’s home on numerous occasions.  She was fed and treated like a member of this woman’s family. Fahim was the youngest of five brothers, he had six sisters and all together his mother Bibi had fifty-three grandchildren from all her children’s marriages. She is a very welcoming person. That’s why Dysinger kept going back and to finish her film.

One Bullet is a character study of a tragedy that happens to a young boy with a lot of promise and turns into a story of how his family reacts to that tragedy.  They are looking for someone to blame but no answers are forthcoming. The filmmaker Dysinger feels sorry about what happens and tries to console the boy’s family. That is while she’s trying to make a film about them at the same time. It comes together nicely with her narration.  It’s just sad no matter how you look at this situation and what happened after she left the country.

3 stars

Dan Skip Allen