Osama

I'll spare you the tedious task of reading this slightly long review and say outright that this film is great but very hard to watch and requires one of those special moods where one wants to see a film and is reluctant to watch some standard multi personality disorder thriller or a romantic comedy that more and more lately, seem mutually exclusive (How to lose a guy in 10 days, Love actually and the list goes on and on).

Osama, a name that strikes fear in almost every person, is a bogus name of a young girl who lives with her widowed mother and grandmother. The fact that neither women can't go to work under the strict rules of the Taliban, forces the mother to cut her daughter's hair short and send her to work as a boy. Soon enough, the disguised girl is recruited to a religious, Taliban oriented, all male school where she faces the task of fitting in, a task which is partially aided by Esphandi, a beggar teen who knows Osama's secret and goes a great length to hide it, knowing full well that if revealed, both his and her life will be in jeopardy.

According to the IMDB's Biography of Marina Golbahar (who portrays Osama) the struggle for survival is hardly new to her which is probably why she plays in such a credible and moving manner despite having no acting experience. The acting is the cornerstone of the film and it is the main contributor to the film's impact. Another major factor is the scenery, I will elaborate on that later on.

Without going into detail as to the plot's progress, I will note that the film doesn't try to embellish the harsh reality of Afghan women and especially their children who, according to the film, are doomed in most cases to be robbed of their childhood.

I added the "according to the film" reference because this film doesn't try to convey it's hatred to this regime and although I'm hardly a Taliban devotee, I am skeptic enough to know that film can depict anyone they want anyway they choose (just the other day there was a story on 60 minutes that showed how North Korean kids are brainwashed to believe that George W Bush is the 21st century's Hitler ) so one must approach this film under a very critical point of view.

But even so, there is little dispute that women's rights were trampled during the Taliban reign of oppression and that Afghanistan is a nation in plight in large part due to that regime (was it the setting or did the Taliban also banned the building of houses with roofs?).

The only reservation I have of the film is the fact that under the loathing of the Talibans, the director, Siddiq bermak, added scenes that weakens the usually high sense of genuineness of the film. For example, in a wedding party the women sing almost throughout the scene about men falling in the war against Russia in the late 80's. Not your regular spice-up-the-party tunes. I assume the director wanted to give us a little background about the characters and forgot that the key to the story's conviction is the appeal of Osama and not the appall of the Taliban (I used that word eight times in this review, I think I overdid it).

But other than that, the film is very powerful and although the real magnitude if the suffering in Afghanistan will never be known to its full extent, I still managed to feel empathy for the people I used to be completely indifferent to (I admit to my eternal shame).

8.5 out of 10 on FilmOmeter.

One more thing I'd like to address to is the quote in the beginning of the film. In the Hebrew subtitled version of the film, the quote was translated as "I may forgive but won't forget" by Nelson Mandela. In the film, however, the quote (in Arabic letters) refers to Doctor Shariati who was the ideologue of the Iranian cue (I didn't get the chance to read the actual quote because my Arabic is a little rusty). I guess there wasn't much point in explaining to a viewer like myself who Shariati was but nevertheless, its an evidence of the tiny alterations film go when they are branded for foreign viewing.

The Director is taking through us a 80 minutes journey through the eyes of a 13 year old girl in Afghanistan under the taliban...

The landscape full of limestone .....and the people unfortunate enough to have born into the wrong time....

barren land and lives.....

where every other woman is a widow and every other mother is a living tomb.......

Please listen to the soundtrack carefully.... especially the background score.... its really important..... it starts off with an iron swing..... ends with the sound of skipping rope hitting the ground.... Masterful.

I bet that after the movie, you will go and kiss your young daughter. You sure will.

My salute to the director who mesmerised me the whole 80 minutes....

saw this movie in 8th international film festival of kerala in 2003 where It got a grand applause.

This was the first movie made in post taliban regime in afghanistan. Truly commendable.

My 9 out of 10.

In a time when the world is so focused on the conflict unfolding in Iraq, the thing that is most clear to me after watching this movie is the old saying that after thousands of years of wars fought in the name of religion, we are not a second closer to peace than we ever were. Osama looks at one of the many religious struggles in the world by focusing on the plight of women under the iron fist of the Taliban, one of the sickest and most debase groups on earth.

The story focuses on a young girl living in an all female family, and since they live in an area ruled by the Taliban, they are not allowed to leave the house, because women walking around unaccompanied by a male are promptly arrested and subjected to inhuman punishments. With no way to feed themselves, since women are not even allowed to leave the house, much less work, their only choice is to dress up their youngest member of the family as a boy and have her go out and find work to feed everyone else.

The most important thing that the film does is that it calls attention to the atrocities that are being committed by religious groups beyond hijacking planes or planting roadside bombs or kidnapping and beheading people. In addition to all of those horrible atrocities, there are women in Afghanistan that are literally treated not just like property, but like animals.

At one point in the movie, one character, a woman, wishes that God had never created women. The fact that she wishes that God had never created women, rather than wishing something a little more logical, like that God had never created the Taliban, serves to bring into sharp focus the extent to which the Taliban have perverted these women's minds.

The film opens with a surreal scene of a large group of women in ghostly blue burkhas in a demonstration in which they chant their desire for the right to work, for some reason seeming to have forgotten that they do not even have the right to assemble. The local Taliban, however, remembers this little detail very clearly, and starts by hosing the women down with high-pressure hoses before opening fire on them. That such madness is committed in the name of some god is an illustration of how humans can take the concept of religion and twist it so horribly wrong that they can justify doing whatever on earth they feel like.

The movie is a study not only of the atrocious practices that are carried out against women by the Taliban, but also an illustration of the elasticity of the concept of religion. Especially in America, we have this conception of religion as this benevolent force that transcends the suffering that we endure on earth and promises justification through a higher medium. Osama shows us that it is the very concept of religion that is used in some practices to justify that suffering for which we look above for reasoning and comfort.

The Taliban have succeeded in amassing all of the worst possible appropriations associated with religion, turning it from a benevolent force and into a tool with which to justify their massive destruction of human rights, which are not an American concept but a religious one.

Aristotle once said, 'I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God that has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.'

Similarly, I personally do not feel obliged to believe that any God in existence, presiding over any religious sect, could possibly approve of the wholesale torture, abuse, and destruction of women, a divine creation if there is a single one on earth.

The film felt like a documentary - it was simple and straightforward. "Osama" captured many aspects of what life is like during Taliban's occupation, through the eyes of a 12-year old Afghan girl, within 1 hr. 22 mins. - it's more than most Hollywood movies manage to get across in 2 hrs. For a debut feature, w-d Siddiq Barmak delivered a quietly poignant film - it may not be evident at first impression right after seeing the film with the sadness and injustice it burdensomely carries. As I was re-telling the film's plot to someone who missed the showing, it came to me how succinctly the film tells/exposes what the women and children, and men, had to tolerate under such atrocious regime. The poverty level and misfortunate situation/predicaments are almost unspeakable.

The portrayal of Osama by Marina Golbahari is impressive: the bewilderment and fear on her face, the rare break into a smile we get to catch, her wailing and cry and crying - mostly delivered in a speechless manner. The other child actor, Arif Herati, who played the one who tried to shield her from trouble by the other boys, gave a brief but convincing Espandi. There's also Osama's mother and grandmother, and the neighbors, and the men who were 'helpless' in spite of wanting to help - the roles and scenes are all touchingly stirring. There are suspenseful moments and one wonders what would happen next - outcome could be predictable yet its share of drama and humanity lessen not. As a relieving contrast, a coming of age boys lesson in a Turkish bath setting was included - suspense and intrigue a-mixed. Barmak gave us a well-paced film, missing not a chance to provide insight to the cultural aspects of the people.

"Osama" brings to mind other similar 'hard medicine' films: Iranian director Jafar Panahi's `The Circle' 2000 (aka "Dayareh"), is the empathetic telling of the mistreatment/misfortune of four women in an unsympathetic society; director Michael Winterbottom's docudrama `In this World' released through 2003 Sundance Series, gave us an unflinching look into 'human cargo smuggling' of an Afghan refugee, 16-year old Jamal, with the persistent slim hope of a better livelihood in Britain; Xavier Koller's `Journey of Hope," the 1991 Academy Award's Best Foreign Film, is a heartbreaking tale of enduring/diminishing hope.

On a different note possibly more hopeful, though family poverty, hardships of Afghan refugees and girl posing as boy to obtain work are still the ingredients, we have "Baran" 2001, another worthwhile filmic experience from Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi ("Children of Heaven" and "Color of Paradise".)

The use of Afghan culture as a medium for the commentary this film delivers shouldn't be misinterpreted. While it does serve to educate the viewer about the violent impact of religious fundamentalism and the raging inequality of conditions women have faced in Afghanistan, it also teaches the lesson of what happens when an individual defies the established rules of sexuality, a lesson that can be as relevant in Ohio as in Afghanistan. Osama is not just a girl, but a girl who masquerades as a boy in order to survive; the torment she endures in return is not just a demonstration of the cruelties of of fundamentalist Islam, but the cruelties of society as we know it.

Barbarism is not confined to any people, any nation, or any religion, and it would be a grave mistake to misinterpret (whether accidentally or otherwise) the aim of such a poignant film. Osama is skillfully produced and acted, and serves as an artful and immersive vessel for its sentiments.