Osama

A raw and heartfelt portrayal of women's lives under Taliban rule, Osama (2003) is purportedly the first film filmed entirely in Afghanistan after fall of Taliban. Directed by Siddiq Barmak and starring first time actress Marina Golbahari.

Plot:
After years of warfare, Afghanistan is full of widowed families. Under Taliban rule, however, homes without males are homes without livelihood. In a society where women are not allowed to go out in the public without being escorted by a man, a widow struggles to provide for her young daughter and elderly mother. They hit rock bottom after the hospital she works in closes and the last of her patient dies. In desperation the grandmother recalls a story in which a boy walks under a rainbow and becomes a girl. They decide to cut the young daughter's hair and have her pretend to be a boy.
She gets a job at a teashop and lives in fear of being discovered everyday. Her fears are elevated when a Taliban recruiter rounds up all the boys around town for training and religious education. Her femininity becomes increasingly exposed. It seems her position would be jeopardized after an elderly educator calls her a nymph during absolution (a ritual to clean the genitals). The other boys tease her ceaselessly until a beggar, her only friend, comes to her rescue. He gives her the name Osama, perhaps to inspire some measure of fear and respect by association.
Eventually she is found out due to her untimely menstruation. She is sent to some sort of guru/judge and given to an old man as a bride. When she arrives she finds out the man already has four wives, all of them kept under lock and key, and says the man ruined their lives. In a demonstration of his cruelty, he takes a string of padlocks and asks Osama to choose her own prison lock as a wedding gift. The last scene shows the man performing his absolutions, probably after he has 'ruined' Osama's life.

Thoughts:
This film seeps hopelessness throughout. There are a lot of negative themes, including oppression, discrimination, abandonment, loneliness, loss of innocence, resignation, and most of all, utter despair.
A little girl, hung in a well, with blood trickling down her legs and crying her heart out for mommy while surrounded by hostile men and indifferent boys. Its pretty much despair personified.

Despair Personified.

Osama is not a Mulan. She's obedient and shy, a girl through and through. Sometimes she came across as way too passive. She does virtually nothing to help herself, calling for Espandi every time. She can't even begin to make the effort to be a boy, and who can blame her?  She is only a child, as the film reminds us with poignant scenes:

I suppose the actress is to be commended. She has scarcely ten lines throughout the film and must convey most of her character through expression alone. I lose track of how many times she cried, but it was heck of a lot.

Things that struck me:
The most heartbreaking moment of the film is when poor Espandi, infinitely street-wise and independent, cries as he watches his friend being chased down and arrested by a swarm of Taliban instructed boys. He can't save her this time. In another world, perhaps, their friendship could have turned into something more. Espandi is played by Arif Herati, who according to IMDB can manage get by now a days in Afghan, a reminder that the glamour of acting and the big screen is very much a first world by product.

The Afghan landscape is coarse, broken, and lends a special bleakness that compliments the film subject. That is not to say its not beautiful.

Rapist/Husband performs absolution. Somehow forms a beautiful picture

TL;DR:
A desperate family dresses up their only daughter as a boy to make livelihood under Taliban Afghan. Its a unique and saddening story of a childhood and girlhood lost.