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(More customer reviews)This 2004 Golden Globe award winner for Best Foreign Language film, directed by Afghani Siddiq Barmak, is a stunning indictment of the repressive, fundamentalist Taliban regime and its treatment of women. Filmed on a shoestring budget, the film is a composite of a number of true stories, coalescing into one. It is harrowing look at a feudal sort of government that equated women with little more than chattel. Forced to be totally dependent on men, the question arises as to what would be their fate, if all the men in their world were to no longer be there for them.
This is the issue that confronts one particular woman, a widowed doctor, who treats patients in secret. Unfortunately, the hospital, if one can call it that, has not paid her for some time, and she can no longer work there. Moreover, it has become too dangerous for her to travel the streets, as she is a lone woman forbidden to travel the streets without the accompaniment of a member of the male sex. As her household consists solely of three generation of women, having lost her husband and her brother, circumstances are dire indeed.
She must devise some plan of getting or earning their daily bread, if they are to survive. She turns to her young timid daughter, a girl on the cusp of womanhood. She decides that her beautiful daughter must disguise herself as a boy and go out into the world to help earn some food for the family, or they will die. Thus, the daughter is transformed into a boy called Osama. The mother then takes Osama to see a kindly former comrade of Osama's late father, who now runs a small dusty shop. There, Osama is left to work, stirring cauldrons of steaming milk, scenes that are positively medieval.
Passing as a boy, Osama is obliged to do those things that a male is expected to do. So, when the Taliban police come to the shop looking for boys for indoctrination at a mullah run school, Osama has no choice but to go. Thus, begins the downfall of Osama. Despite the best efforts of Espandi, an enterprising street urchin who has befriended Osama and knows her secret, Osama is to continue a harrowing journey that only one of her sex may travel.
This is an intriguing film that, despite being somewhat choppy and disjointed in the telling, provides a birds-eye view at what life was like for women under the Taliban. The beautiful imagery of the film is a strong counterpoint to the harshness of Taliban rule. It is a mercy for women that the Taliban is no longer in power. This film certainly brings home the absolute cruelty of that regime towards women.
Though the director uses non-actors for the roles in the film, each one of them does a yeoman's job with the given role. Arif Herati, who plays the role of Espandi, has a great deal of screen presence. Marina Gobahan, who has the starring role of Osama, is excellent as the timid and shy girl who reluctantly cross dresses as a male in order to help her family. Her terror of being killed and her fear of the Taliban is palpable throughout the film. Her eyes are most expressive, world weary and infinitely sad. It were those very eyes that drew the director to cast her in the role of Osama. This is a film that will leave its imprint on the viewer.
The DVD offers little by way of special features, though it does offer a moderately interesting interview with the director that runs about twenty minutes in length.
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Inspired by a true story, this Golden GlobeÂ(r)-winning* drama is the first film made in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Hailed by critics as 'stunning(Entertainment Weekly),breathtaking(Slant) and 'emotionally charged(Screen International), Osama isa striking work of cinematic art(L.A. Weekly).After the brutal Taliban regime bans women from working and forbids them to leave their homes without a male escort, a 12-year old girland her mother find themselves on the brink of starvation. With nowhere left to turn, the mother disguises her daughter as a boy. Now calledOsama,the young girl embarks on a terrifying and confusing journey as she tries to keep the Taliban from discovering her true identity.*2003: Foreign Language Film
