A New Adventure

Movie Review - Osama

Just came back from the free screening of Osama. I should be working right now but the movie has left me in contemplation so I thought the best would be to write about it.

In short, the movie, based on a true strory, shows the pliglt of women in Afganistan during the Taliban Rule. The lead character is a 12 year old girl, who is disguised like a boy by her mother as women are not allowed to work or even travel alone. Ultimately the Taliban finds it and she just escpaces her death, when an old man weds her and takes her to his 'harem' where there are already handful of his other wives. (No he does not take her out of pity, but with lecherous intentions)

About the moive - its short and to the point, no background score, not many dialogues, a hitting story with no hanky-panky emotions or drama, a more like a documentary without narration. One does expect that like the usuall movie climaxes the story will somehow turn favorable to the girl and her mother but director Siddiq Barmak, spares no sympathy, probably wanting to depict the exactitude. This is what made me think.

I have heard from people and read in the news that Taliban was really merciless to the people especially the woman as the movie depicts. But was its really to this degree that woman was not allowed to travel alone even under a burka? And when a man takes his wife on a cycle, he can be punished as other men will be aroused? Or is it just another method to justify the ousting of Taliban by the Americams.

Well probably its true! And why not. I have heard stories about the restrictions the women had to suffer in the villages of India too but probably never really gave them a thought. Now when the thought passes by that the ritual of 'Sati' did exist(believing it actually did exist in the form as we know now) the verisimilitude of the movie can not be questioned. The problem is that I dont believe in condemning anything out and out. I believe in necessity is the mother of all inventions and also rules and regulations. But necessities change over time, and many a times the rules and regulations dont, that is the right time to condemn them. I do strongly condemn the ritual of 'Sati' and the 'unbendable rules' depicted in the movie' - in the contemporary world, and also want to do so in any other world, but the other half of me is trying to find possible reasons as to what in the first place gave rise to such rituals. Can they be justified at any point of time? (I believe not. Which might contradicts my belief of necessity is the mother of all rules and regulations, but who says that all necessities are justified? The problem lies in the necessity itself..... well!! A good movie go and watch it.)

posted by Nikhil @ 8:52 PM