Buda explotó de vergüenza

I stumbled upon this film on TV while feeling rather down. At first I thought it was a documentary and was interested by it, after 5 minutes I was hooked.

As the story unfolded I soon realised that it was a film that captures a realism rarely seen on screen, nothing in this film seems contrived if anything it is ad hoc and natural.

I couldn't believe how much I instantly warmed to the characters especially the central character.

Without giving anything away this feature moved me, disturbed me, humbled me and left me in awe.

You need to see this film for yourself, any description I could give would be a disservice to it.

The underlying message in 2008's Iranian film, Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame, seems to be of a decidedly bleak nature. In finishing with the same sequence of found footage in which the film began, that of a giant Buddha statue being blown apart and therefore collapsing, the nature of the film is rendered circular, additionally suggesting an ongoing process of hardship; struggle and torment for the locals. In locals, we mean young girls and in young girls, I think the film means women as a whole. The piece is about the plight of a young girl and her innocent desire to travel to school so that she may learn what her male child neighbour is learning after an interaction reveals she cannot read what he reads. By the end, and after some fairly disturbing sequences of soon-to-be male foils attempting to vanquish her ideas, the little girl has, ultimately, submitted to her oppressors in, quite literally, lying down for them amidst a raining down of crops.

The little girl of the title is Baktay (Noruz), an actress no elder than about ten ploughing her way into a debut role with one might say the same level of freshness and raw desire that her character exhibits in her burning lust to raise funds for school equipment and then get to the damn place. Such an item compliments then-nineteen year old female director Hana Makhmalbaf's idea of seemingly wanting to tell a story with a dramatic edge, but this element infused within the actress additionally retains an eye on the documentary-driven roots of what it is she's doing. Drawing on inspiration, I'm sure, from other such films from the Middle-East looking at a female's role within this world such as 2003's Osama and 2006's Offside; Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame peers eerily into the dusty and hostile world of life under Muslim rule, exploring and dramatising without ever exploiting.

Bakatay's innocent but emotionally fuelled romp through the desert plains and dusty market places is a coming-of-age process of sorts; initially angered and annoyed at neighbouring boy Abbas' (Alijome) reading next door, she becomes more interested in the idea after advancing and asks him to read to her some more. In being caught out as to not being able to read after Abbas catches her purely reciting the pictures and what they're of in the book, Bakatay takes it upon herself to journey to a school so that she may learn. In doing so, the need to defy the male makes itself first apparent at this early stage; Abbas' harmless but churlish mocking of her that she cannot read kicks off Bakatay's reactionary drive to do what's unexpected of her. A heartbreaking sequence follows in the local market when she desperately tries to sell some eggs to raise money for a notebook and a something to write with, as the adult males around her tantalisingly count wads of money directly in front of her watching eyes; Bakatay, relegated into distinctly looking up at this figure handle money thus establishing a position of power, a position not determined by the role of adult over child nor rich over poor; but a gender driven one of the male over the female.

Like Osama and Offside, the film covers this young female's sprawling and unpredictable journey through her respective surroundings. But I found Osama to be a collection of peculiar events strung together more than I found it an affecting piece about actually living under the rule. It was more preoccupied with an approach to film-making that saw it tick boxes more than anything else, in that it felt the drastic need to include: the hardships that exist on women; the raw threat of the Taliban explored within the training camp sequences and the nation's attitudes towards people of a more Caucasian origin, exemplified by the white film-maker character sentenced to death. Budda Collapsed Out of Shame sees a central character wander through her hostile world, but rather than have this act as an excuse to document what goes on within these hostile borders, it fabricates a story; with a character; who has a drive; who has something at stake as they desperately try to attain what it is they want with an innocent, child-like drive.

The fact Osama was the first Afghan film to be produced in 'x' number of years at the time, since the Allied invasion, might go a long way in cracking why it felt the need to document and inform by way of a young girl's wandering than feel like an actual film with a central reason for everything happening around it – did Osama need anyone at all at the core of it in order for it to get across its messages and ideas? Or was it just more interested in informing on what's what. Regardless, Budda Collapsed Out of Shame is a superb exercise in film-making; a harrowing tale of one individual, helpless to the powers that be in the form of both the system and the people she meets. One particular sequence that captures the terror of her plight, in which a group of kids 'play' Taliban, a disturbing game in which mock-graves are dug and a stoning of the lead is supposedly instigated, sticks in memory. There is a disturbing undercurrent of realism to it, a blurred line that the boys cross as to whether it really is just a game; and in a film in which education and various youngsters picking up on individual things are at the core, the 'skills' and techniques the kids playing Taliban practise on Bakatay may well be read into as pure foreshadowing. If the identical opening and closing shots of found footage are anything to go by, Makhmalbaf's view of the overall situation is that unless things change, these sorts of things are just going to keep happening.

I really pushed myself in order to follow the movie up to the end. I lived in Afghanistan for 2 years as journalist. I spent in Bamian my vacations because it is so safe place to walk around. And I know very well places where the shooting has been done as well Hazaras. Problem is, that the subject of this film is so inappropriate because of nature of Hazaras - ethnic group who live in Bamian region. For a start - Hazaras are most depressed minority group in Afghanistan. Over history there have been a lot of massacres of Hazaras, and last one was 2001-2002 by Taliban. So it is most shocking to look at the feature film where little Hazara boys pretend to be Talibs - it is the same like to make a movie of Jude boys pretending to be Nazis… Secondly, Hazaras are most tolerant group inside Afghanistan (only Nuristanis are more tolerant, but they live in borderlands of Pakistan). There is no problem for women to walk around without burka (they like very colourful scarves). If you travel around you can see a lot of very simple schooling around – just school desks outside, even no cover or tent. There is no problem to study together – boys and girls – under 10. I have seen even 12-years old together in one classroom in Bamian. It could be very nice documentary of schools at Bamian. Nature is superb and people are just great. I was sad that young Iranian lady has not done her homework before shooting.

I have watched this movie for so many time but still its fresh, i really want to know about the actors in the movie they have done an extraordinary job at that age being judged by their village far away from the modern world out of all facilities , this is a true noble work.

To tell a story without telling the audience what they should and shouldn't feel is courageous in any age; in this age of zealotry and cynicism, and especially in the film makers' own region, it is almost messianic...siddhartic even.

And of course, what better way to cut through the bu11shit and get to the facts than to lay them out from a child's perspective? The innocent child who still has a free will shows us how the world might be if conditions were better; the innocent children who have been indoctrinated, thereby mirroring the adult world, show us how the sorry world of today really is.

Children represent the truth, but not for long: the battle for their souls is the battle for the future.