OSAMA

OSAMA is a movie about a young afghan girl disguised as a boy to support her family. What I liked most about the movie is the cinematography. The use of color is fantastic… every scene in the movie is a work of art. I liked the raw looks of the afghan people. They are untouched by the outside world, strong in their simplicity, serene despite all their suffering. The depiction of the characters was pretty effective too…be it the flamboyant mullah who is obsessed with wet dreams ablution… or the young Espandi who talks a lot… or the judge whose decision to execute people is as easy as fingering a bead in his misbah… they all had this air of authenticity in them.

Just few weeks ago before watching OSAMA, I watched an Iranian movie called “BARAN”. It was also about a young afghan girl (a refugee in Tehran) disguised as a boy in order to work and provide for her family. It’s hard to believe how oppression could reach to such extremes as to force people to take on measures that can hardly be considered as sensible plausible options to take. An afghan friend of mine who is living in Canada told me that two girls in his family back in Afghanistan had to disguise themselves as boys for a couple of years because they did not have a man to work and take care of the family. One of the girls couldn’t get away with it for too long because her breasts started growing. The other girl got so used to her role as a boy that her voice and behavior, after she had to be a girl again, were still very masculine.

Reality is stranger than fiction sometimes!