by MATTHEW HAYS

It was a director no less than Martin Scorsese who once commented on the interplay between documentary and fiction filmmaking. "In many ways," he argued, "the tension between documentary and fiction lies at the heart of cinema. It's as if the two forms have a pact to keep each other honest."

That tension is alive and well in Christian Johnston's September Tapes, the documentary-fiction hybrid that has a journalist enter Taliban Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to search for America's most wanted, Osama Bin Laden. It's a compelling concoction, and you do believe the filmmakers' claims when they say that much of the gun-and missile-fire that surrounded them (and was captured on tape) was real and unrehearsed.

Our hero's plight is unnerving; he ventures around Afghanistan in what often seems a rather naïve state, relying desperately upon his trusty translator (played by Wali Razaqi, also the film's producer). In what is perhaps the film's most riveting scene, Razaqi attempts to end a shady gun-buying deal; when the sellers become furious, there's a real sense that something horrid could have happened to the filmmakers as the camera rolls.

September Tapes is often fascinating, but a couple of things hurt it. At times it feels like Blair Witch Goes to Kabul, seeming to have picked up many of the now-clichéd moments from that low-budget horror sensation. As well, since we're left with a formal question hanging over our heads as the proceedings roll, the entire venture begins to feel less like a movie and more like a kind of game show; we spend too much time pondering whether or not what we're seeing is real or staged to allow ourselves to get truly engaged in the movie's universe.

Still, it does present us with an odd twist on the war movie, melding it carefully with doc traditions that operate as shorthand for realism. As a result, September Tapes feels creepy, scary and a bit exploitative all at once.

September Tapes opens Friday, Oct. 1

>> Movie Listings