Apr 06, 2006 08:30 AM
4790 Views
(Updated Apr 06, 2006 08:30 AM)
It is always interesting to watch a foreign language film as we get to learn a lot about different people and their culture. It is with these films we get to understand the important of artistic visual images in a scene to convey the intended emotions and idea of the composed scene. I think Siddiq Barmark, the director of this Afghan film “Osama” has got his learning in the visual language right. Contrary to what I said initially, it is rather shocking to learn how Afghanistan was under Taliban’s rule. The movie focuses just on how badly the women were treated in those days.
The movie is based on a true story. A desperate widow, who lost her husband in a Russian war, is struggling to survive without a penny to buy food for her mother-in-law and her daughter. In Taliban’s rule women are not supposed to work. One fine day, she disguises her daughter into a boy by cutting her hair short and dressing with men’s clothes, so that she can go out for work and earn some money with which she can make both ends meet. Accidentally she gets the name “Osama”. What happens to this little innocent girl when the truth reveals forms the crux of the rest of the story?
In this thrilling journey with Osama, we get to see how in various bad ways women in Afghanistan were treated. How brutally they were punished? Have heard a lot about this, but watching it is quite a different experience. I don’t know what these stupid Taliban’s achieved by having women locked inside the door. They simply don’t treat women as a human being at all. They look at women as just a sex machine. There is something basically wrong in their genes. Let us come back to the movie…
The screenplay is tight and gripping with 90 minutes running like a second. All those 90 minutes, I felt like I was living in Afghanistan with a little tremble and terror inside. The film is shot realistically with real people as actors. More than the script Barmark has believed in the eyes of the little girl who played the role of “Osama”. Her eyes express a wide range of emotions. Her eyes and tears is a sum total representation of pathetic life of the whole women community of Afghanistan. Being tortured by Taliban’s even in the real life should have helped this little girl to give right emotions in front of the camera. If you ever want to see how one would look if they were under fear of death in every second of their life, this little girl’s face and eyes in this film is a sample. There is this beautiful scene when she first comes out of her house in a men’s dress and she feels like everybody on the street is watching her doubtfully and this consciousness of others attention lasts till the end and brings her all the troubles. There is one visual of her playing skipping inside the prison that peeps in at various moments in the movie like a recurring motif. It sums up everything that Barmark has to say through this movie. It is a signature image of the condition of Afghan women then. Osama’s true gender gets revealed much in a way (and it is the best possible way too) I anticipated but when it actually happens on screen, it is deeply emotional and moving. In the climax, Taliban’s court forgives her and what they do in the name of forgiveness is worse than the punishment of death sentence.
The background score though minimal, is effective wherever it is used. The cinematography captures the raw beauty in the landscapes of Afghanistan. Editing can’t get any finer. You never feel the actors as actors and they really are not. Barmark has done a great job in setting the realistic tone. He has extracted a natural performance from the immature actors.
Judging how great a foreign language film is quite easy. I use to switch off the subtitle option in the DVD and watch the movie, and if I am able to get what the author intended a normal audience should get out of the movie, then it means the creator is a master in this craft of movie making. A film has a visual language of its own no matter in which literal language it is made. A creator should know ad use this language in the movie more than his mother tongue to reach a wider audience.
If Bush ever did a good thing in the name of War president after 9/11, it is throwing the Taliban’s out of Afghanistan and giving the much necessary freedom of the Afghan women. So now Afghan women are going for Jobs, participating in sports; they also had a contestant for Miss World competition last year. But initially when I heard all this, I felt what the fuss is all about? Why an Afghan woman doing all this is so special for the media? But “Osama” made me to understand why it is.
