Movies
Osama
No, not that Osama, but rather a pseudonymous twelve-year-old Afghan girl disguised as a boy in order to find employment (shades of Baran). Written and directed by Siddiq Barmak, the first post-Taliban film from Afghanistan -- not that we were inundated with pre-Taliban ones -- is predictably about the miseries of life under the Taliban: "Run! The Taliban are coming!" Somewhat crude, appeasing, apple-polishing stuff, but a useful document of faces, places, clothes, customs (particularly the instruction of boys in wet-dream ablutions), and suffused with a respect for life and an interest in the real world such as somehow elude our Hollywood studios. Marina Golbahari, Khwaja Nader, Arif Herati. 2003.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: PG-13