THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

At just 74 minutes, Beauty Academy skimps on many of the questions that naturally arise from such a provocative topic. We don't learn much, if anything, of the background of the American instructors ( other than the two Afghan expatriates who are returning after having fled the country decades earlier ) , or the hows and whys of the organization bringing the school to the apparently beautician-starved country. We get more on the Afghan students but though we see it time and again throughout the movie, no one talks about the oddest contradiction of all: why women would spend hours having their hair permed and colored only to have it immediately flattened when donning the omnipresent burqas before heading into the streets and home.

Mermin does start out with a welcome overview of the war torn history of the country and some very telling details about the horrendously tough strictures put in place during the Taliban regime ( in 1996, for example, they banned movies, TV AND music—talk about hell on earth! ) . One of the first things to go, apparently, were beauty salons, which we find out the Afghan women kept going in secret. Thus, when in August of 2003, after the rout of the Taliban, six hairdressers opened a beauty school in Kabul, no wonder the women lined up for blocks to be among the first 20 chosen for training.

As the three month course continues we find out a bit about the teachers: Sima, who left the country to live in West Virginia 23 years earlier and now has returned, Terri, a New Yorker and Patricia, the British accented head of the program. Patricia is the most eloquent ( 'This is like an oasis in the middle of hell' ) while Sima is the most emotional. Interspersed are brief interviews with the students who have risked the wrath of their husbands to attend the school. Always, at the edge of the frame, are the sullen, watchful men, suspicious of the women's happiness, their American teachers, and crowding around the large uncurtained windows of the school. Their disapproval is unspoken and overbearing—especially when given orders by the female American teachers.

Then Debbie with the red spiked hair from Indiana arrives, and the film takes off. She shakes things up, challenging the complacent Afghan women: 'It's your job to set the new trends in hair styles!' and insisting that the school's male manager curtain the windows for privacy. There are moments when Debbie's manner is tough to take—her overbearing ways are easily interpreted as a prime example of Ugly Americanism. But the scales tip in her favor when Debbie announces she isn't about to let any man take away her driving privileges. The scene in which she zips around Kabul with a car full of gleeful students oblivious to the derisive stares of the men she encounters is to understand the significance of small victories which the salon represents.

Makes me long for a sequel also starring Debbie, this time demanding Afghan men set the new trends ( of a different sort ) , and named, appropriately—The Gay Bar of Kabul.