Sotto le rovine del Buddha

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.

This is an unusual film, but not a film that can be considered a major work of cinema. The Iranian film is shot on Afghan locations very close to the spot where the fundamentalist Muslim Taliban destroyed the centuries-old rock hewn gigantic statue of Buddha. Had it existed today, it could have been a modern wonder of the world. Hence the title--"Buddha collapsed from shame". The film location probably has not a single Buddhist--at least officially. It is habited by gentle, peace loving Muslims terrorized by fundamentalist Muslims. Women are forced to wear burkhas--to cover their hair. If the women use lipstick, they are brutally punished, even stoned to death, after being given water to drink before they die! Girls are not allowed to attend school, while boys are. The film begins with the documentary footage of the destruction of the Buddha statue.

The film is an interesting film for several reasons. It is directed by a 19-year-old girl--daughter of a famous Iranian director. Like Sofia Coppola, her family must have encouraged her at every step.

The movie is equally interesting because a Muslim director is criticizing the Taliban.

The most valuable part of the film is that the criticism is indirect as perceived from a child's perspective. The entire story is told by a lovely, persistent, young girl child who yearns to learn to read and attend school, and makes intelligent use of her mother's lipstick and four eggs taken from her home to attain her aim in life. Her mother is away, working. (I guess here shades of director Hana Makhmalbaf's personal aspirations are mirrored, though she led a much better life than the Afghan girl.) The film is a wonderful example of use of kids in world cinema. What credible performances!

Yet there are problems with the film. Many sequences seem to remind you of "Lord of the Flies". There is a sequence where the girl child ties a baby with a rope and leaves for school--but this scene is never followed up. There is another scene where the girl rings the school bell, and no one in the school seems to notice her action. Humour takes its toll on credibility. Yet Hana needs to be commended for her brave and intelligent work.

The film opened the 12th International Film Festival Of Kerala, in India, today

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.

Sometimes in life the simplest pleasures are the best, how true that statement really is. Sometimes in cinema the simplest plots are the best, in the case of 'Buddha collapsed of Shame' the latter statement is certainly true. In a part of the world renowned for its danger yet quite unknown, the very essence of the movie to portray life in the remote regions of Afghanistan through the eyes of a six year old girl is a masterstroke. It does away with the needless baggage that an adult would bring with them such as their political views, their in-purity and lack of innocence. The beautiful thing about it is the aim of our 'hero' is so very simple as are her ideals, yet because of the world she lives in she is presented with at times terrifying challenges. It truly is a ride that invigorates various emotions throughout it, and at the end of it all you leave it comforted yet troubled.

In a similar approach to Begnini's 'Life is beautiful', or John Boyne's 'The Boy in the Stripped Pijamas' (now becoming a film), the director shows our own ugliness as seen through the innocent and clever eyes of kids. The whole story happens in their world, and we only see adults from waist down, as seen by kids, although the reflection of the evil they cause affects children in a shameful way, as the title suggests. It is a very sad story not only because,as always, the innocent have to pay for the crimes of the powerful, but also because in their eyes, the politics of power, domination and war is bare, without excuses, in all its monstrosity. Although the story is set in Afghanistan, a country that has been suffering all kind of conflicts, these are problems happening all around the world, because very few are the areas which have not inflicted and suffered, in some time of their history the abuses of power the film points to: racism (pashtun attacking hazara kids, considered inferior), sexism (segregated schools, girl insulted and attacked for being 'a woman'), fundamentalism (kids playing the taliban torturing and mock killing hazaras and/or girls), international abusive and interested invasions (kids playing the American spy, and the American soldiers attacking and bombing other kids)and poverty suffered mainly by children, living in caves and with no access to school, having to take care of small brothers as their mothers have to works, fathers being nowhere.

The girl protagonist is wonderful, and the photography of the film very beautiful. A simple, funny, entertaining and beautiful story which, mirrors our evil through the innocent and beautiful eyes of a kid.