OSAMA
Directed, Written & Edited by: Siddiq Barmak.
Produced by: Barmak Films.
Director of Photography: Ebrahim Ghafuri.
Music by: Mohammed Reza Darwishi.
Released by: United Artists.
Country of Origin: Afghanistan. 82 min. Rated: PG-13.
With: Marina Golbahari, Zubaida Sahar & Arif Herati.

Set in Kabul after the rise of the Taliban and based on a true story, Osama portrays a 12-year-old girl (the captivating Marina Golbahari) who must disguise herself as a boy in order to find work. Under their extreme interpretation of Islamic law, the Taliban have prohibited all women from working or leaving their home without the escort of a male relative. In the absence of her father and uncle (one lost to the war against Soviet expansion and the other to the subsequent civil war), her mother (Zubaida Sahar) and grandmother have no choice but to re-fashion the terrified girl as a boy named Osama. Her harrowing quest for work, full of the dread of being discovered in streets heavily surveilled by Taliban police, mirrors the fear and confusion of a society struggling to survive under extreme oppression.

Writer-director Siddiq Barmak's compelling debut is the first Afghan feature film released since the fall of the Taliban regime. In a style clearly indebted to Iranian cinema, among other influences, Barmak draws impressively subtle and complex performances from a nonprofessional cast. Moreover, his fine cinematography powerfully conveys the devastation of a once cosmopolitan city, while his meditative use of silence accentuates Osama's sense of being utterly alone. Barmak's choice to refrain from portraying the Taliban's violence directly spares us from gruesome images of human suffering, but also renders that suffering more real and haunting.

While reminiscent in certain respects to Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Kandahar (2001), which sought to bring international attention to the plight of Afghanis virtually ignored by the rest of the world before 9/11, Barmak is more successful at showing the palpable humanity of his subjects. We see women dancing and singing at a wedding ceremony, and observe their brave ingenuity as they quickly pretend they're mourning a funeral when the Taliban break in. Osama's grandmother (richly portrayed by Hamida Refah) represents, with an almost poetic eloquence, the enlightened values of equality and justice that persist in Afghanistan under totalitarianism. Men attending court shake their heads when Taliban judges announce severe penalties for alleged crimes, quietly asking themselves, "Where are the witnesses?" Barmak's humane gaze resists seeing the Taliban as an incomprehensible evil, but rather shows us boys and men, some more sympathetic than others, both caught up by and perpetuating a cruel and violent system. Leili Kashani, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, New York University
February 5, 2004