Dear all, Truth lies everywhere, but you need to judge, being not blind in mind. Read this and share your views if anything impartial please. Thanks in advance. --- Osama: A Rare Experience Reviewed by Deepa Kandaswamy**
Title: Osama. Year: 2003. Director: Siddiq Barmak Leads: Marina Golbahari, Zubaida Sahar, Arif Herati, Hamida Refah, Mohammed Nader Khadjeh, etc. Language: Dari with English subtitles. Run Time: 82 minutes. Osama is not a movie about the notorious Bin Laden. Neither is it a documentary film, though the opening scenes of the movie give that impression. Rather, Osama is an Afghan feature film made in Afghanistan, and starring only Afghans. Not only does this make the film a rarity, but considering the fact that most actors in this movie had never before seen a film in their lives - thanks to repressive Taliban rules – this movie is truly an amazing achievement. Afghanistan is not known for its movie industry but with this movie, director-cum-screenwriter, Siddiq Barmak, manages to change that opinion. Barmak is an Afghan documentary filmmaker and this is his first feature film. Osama is inspired by the real-life story of an Afghan girl. It starts unconventionally, with Espandi (Arif Herati), a street urchin, approaching the camera, offering to guide the filmmaker and to protect him from the evil eye with smoking incense for a fee. As he speaks directly to the camera, one feels that the smiling Espandi with mischievous eyes is talking to the audience. Next, we see a nameless girl (Marina Golbahari) walking home with her mother. When the camera swings again, we encounter an unexpected scene – hundreds of light blue burka-clad Afghan women are seen holding placards and shouting slogans: "We are not political. We are war- widows. We want the right to work." Most of the women have children with them. The demonstration strengthens the belief that this is a documentary, but not for long. The Taliban arrive in jeeps with guns firing in the air and enter the crowd of protesting women. Soon the women have water cannons directed on them. Their tears mingle with water as they try to flee with their children. Several are arrested, and thrown into cages. We see Espandi running with the nameless girl and her mother. They hide inside a house crying and screaming, not loudly, but with fear. The filmmaker does not escape the Taliban either, as he is knocked down, arrested and the camera goes blank. However, just before he is arrested, the filmmaker's camera identifies the protagonist of the movie - the nameless girl – crying, but also peeping through the door to see if the women escaped. The nameless girl lives with her grandmother (Hamida Refah) and her mother (Zubaida Sahar), who is a widowed doctor working in the local hospital. The girl's father and uncle have died in the Kabul and Russian wars and her family has no surviving male relatives. When the Taliban shut the hospital down, the only earning family member, the mother, loses her job. All the patients, including a dying woman, are asked to go home as are the doctors and nurses who have not received wages for over four months. Women are told not to leave their homes unless a mahram (a close male relative) accompanies them. With widows and women comprising a majority of the population, those without male children are left to starve to death. The nameless girl's mother is heartbroken and cries, "I wish I had a son instead of a daughter. I wish God hadn't created women." However, the grandmother retorts, "What are you saying? Men and women are equal. Both work equally hard and are equally unfortunate. A shaved man under a burka looks like a woman. A woman with short hair, cap, and pants looks like a man." This gives them an idea. The women decide to disguise the nameless girl as a boy. As she sleeps, they shear her hair and cut up her father's old clothes to fit her. She wakes up to find herself dressed as a boy. She is given her sheared-off braids, which she buries in a pot filled with mud as if somehow the hair could grow. Now the women are able to go out accompanied by the daughter disguised as a boy. The mother tries to treat patients in their homes and thus earn an income. However, with no medical supplies except for an IV device stand and a quarter bottle of glucose, she is not able to practice for long. Thus, the mother gets her daughter a job at a milk shop run by her husband's friend. Espandi recognizes the girl and threatens to expose them if they do not pay him. Despite all his talk about evading the evil eye, Espandi finds himself harassed by the Taliban. Within days, all the boys of the village including Espandi and the nameless girl are rounded up and taken to a Taliban-run madrasah, where they are taught ritual ablution, and undergo military training. Boys bully the nameless girl after the elderly Taliban teacher, Mullah Sahib (Mohammed Nader Khadjeh), jokingly says "she" looks like a girl. When they demand to know her name, Espandi says her name is Osama. The young girl loses her job at the milk shop when her boss disappears. However, a neighbor's wedding offers temporary employment for which she dresses up as a girl again. Osama becomes a boy by day - as she has to attend the madrasah - and a girl by night. Espandi is unable to protect her identity for long. Osama tries to prove she is a boy when dared by the bullies to climb a tree. Unable to climb down, she has to be helped down. The Taliban teacher frowns upon it and hangs her down a well for hours as punishment. As she screams, one of the boys and Espandi are moved to tears. When she is removed from the well, she attains puberty. Only after seeing the blood running down her legs do the Taliban realize she is a girl. As they chase Osama around the ground, Espandi leaves the school crying. Osama is arrested and thrown into prison awaiting a death sentence. She does not care about death and imagines herself skipping rope, her favorite game. Before the Taliban judge pronounces his judgment, the mullah strikes a deal with him. Despite Osama wishing for the death sentence, the judge marries her to the elderly mullah. She begs the judge not to marry her, but the judge pretends to be deaf and the mullah drags her off. Osama is taken to the mullah's house and locked up. The mullah, Osama finds, already has three wives and several children as old as her. Osama is dressed for her night by the other three wives, all of whom curse the mullah and the Taliban as they tell their stories. Upon his return, the mullah asks his wives for Osama's whereabouts, and locks them up when they refuse to tell. Osama tries in vain to hide. The first thing the mullah offers her is her choice of lock as a wedding present - he has lots of them. When she refuses to choose, he chooses one that he claims is a special one for her: a gigantic iron padlock so she would be safe! Later, we see him take the ritual bath he had taught Osama and the other boys in the madrasah, meant for cleansing after sex. The movie ends with the image of Osama skipping inside a prison cell filled with Afghan women, which proves to be a lasting image and a poignant reminder that while the Taliban may have conquered Afghan women physically, they could never conquer their minds. The movie reminds one of the saying by Mahatma Gandhi, "They may beat you. They may torture you. They may even kill you. But they can never take away your self-respect unless you give it to them." Several things strike the audience all at once while watching this movie. The first is that the women and children in the movie (except for Espandi) have no names. The namelessness of the characters is a deliberate allusion to the invisibility of women, who comprise the majority in Afghanistan, and the plight of all Afghan women and children under the Taliban. The second thing that strikes the viewer is the extraordinary endurance, ingenuity and bravery of the women. This is especially evident during a wedding scene, where women try to celebrate even though the groom is in Iran. When the Taliban arrive, the women quickly begin to weep, pretending the scene is a funeral. While this may be amusing, the movie becomes terrifying when you realize that it has been entirely shot in Afghanistan, where this happened a few years ago. This is not a Holocaust or an old war movie, but a powerful depiction of recent history. The third striking feature in Osama is the commentary on the Taliban. The marriage of Osama to the mullah by the Taliban judge is a sarcastic reminder that the Taliban, who claim to be strict followers of Islam, are not following Islam's teachings at all. The Taliban abducts young boys from their homes against their parents' wishes, indoctrinating them with the Taliban interpretation of the Qur'an, and calling them sinners when they are unable to recite it fully. The bullying of Osama is a ghastly reminder of how these boys will act as men of the Taliban. When the Taliban judge pronounces his judgments, other men watching the executions whisper, "Where are the witnesses?" They shake their head in bewilderment as the Taliban judge says he is acting in the name of Allah. The corruption among the Taliban is exposed when the mullah strikes a deal with the judge for Osama. When the mullah offers Osama a choice of her lock, he may as well as have been holding a string of knives for her execution. Barmak provides a stinging criticism of the social injustices that come into play when group dictatorship comes into power using its own interpretation of religion. The fourth remarkable feature is the way the movie has been scripted and directed, for which Barmak has to be applauded. The composition of images is fabulous and technically brilliant. It is poetic, which seems apt in this land of the great poet, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi. Also, in Osama, we see the women and their lives but not much of the Taliban officials, whose voices we hear but whom we never see. This is a complete inversion of the reality under the Taliban. The Afghanistan we see could be something from the dark ages, where people live in half-destroyed mud houses. We are reminded that this is not the case when we see the anti-aircraft guns and AK-47s. The beauty of the hills in the background is a contrast to the living conditions, where even trees have no leaves. The only green thing we get to see in the entire movie is a watermelon, which actually seems too bright in its grayish blue, dusty surroundings. It is hard to accept this is no set but the present state of the ancient, rich country of proud warriors and poets. The fifth outstanding aspect of this movie is the performance of the actors. It is hard to believe that the girl who plays the lead role, Marina Golbahari, was a beggar on the streets of Kabul when Barmak cast her, or that she had never seen any films. The powerful performances are even more surprising as the entire cast are acting for the first time and most have not seen films at all. Finally, though we do not see any violent scenes, the audience can feel the violence and is pulled in, hoping the women or Osama escape undetected. Silent violence always goes unnoticed, but this movie does not let you ignore it. The violence in Osama is neither loud like war, nor vivid like murder. As you rise from your chair, you are reminded of the famous shower scene from Psycho, where the heroine screams. In this movie, you can hear the collective silent scream of the Afghan women — the dead and the living. What is amazing is that the director has used no melodramatic scenes. You get the feeling you are watching the news: except it is not news, and you cannot sit through it without thinking about the people. This is a movie that needs to be watched repeatedly, in homage, as a reminder to stay alert to make sure this never happens again to anyone in any part of the world. The movie opens with the quote from Nelson Mandela, "I can forgive, but I can't forget." This is how you leave the movie. It is like a poem whose stanzas you will never forget. Let us not forget. http://www.islamonline.net/English/ArtCulture/MovieTheater/2006/11/02.shtml ** Deepa Kandaswamy is an award-winning writer, political analyst, and engineer based in India. Her articles have been published in six continents. Her writing credits include ABC News, Ms., Truth Out, Data Quest, and Middle East Policy. She is the founder-moderator of the International Gender Lobby, a global networking platform for individuals, organizations, and activists interested in working for human rights, peace, and development worldwide. She may be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
