Review: Frontrunner
"Frontrunner" follows the presidential campaign of Dr. Massouda Jalal, a woman who ran in the 2004 Afghanistan presidential election. The film moves from her impressive performance in the 2002 interim presidental election through her 2004 campaign. Jalal entered a heated political environment emerging from Taliban rule, and seeing the struggles and successes of her campaign was fascinating as an outsider.
While this subject was fascinating, the film itself was a bit disappointing. I just don't believe there was enough meat for this to be a 90-minute feature film. Sometimes, instead of using other techniques to communicate some of the periods of waiting, the film just showed the waiting. This might have been fine once or twice, but it felt overused in this film. I also would have liked to see more interviews with the public, both her supporters and her detractors.
This wasn't a bad film, but I think it may have been better as a 60-minute PBS special (or if it had had more of the public voice).