Cheap Osama (DVD) (Marina Golbahari, Zubaida Sahar, Mohamad Nader Khadjeh) (Siddiq Barmak) Price

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Customer Reviews of Osama

The film is cinematically impressive, opening with a shot of hundreds of women dressed in blue burkhas protesting the new rule of being forbidden to take jobs. Soon the Taliban arrive and use hoses and bullets to stamp out the rebellion. We see small children crying and women fleeing in terror. Two of these women are a young 12-year old girl and her widowed mother. The mother used to be a doctor but is no longer allowed to work. She tries to earn a small amount money by caring for a former patient but she always has to have a male escort and even then the Taliban stopped them because, even though she was wearing a burkha, her toes were showing as her patient's father escorted her home on his bicycle. When the patient dies, she has no work at all.

Soon it becomes clear that the grandmother and mother will starve if the young girl does not go out to work. They cut her hair and get her a job with a sympathetic former comrade of her father who died fighting the Russians. Soon, though, all the young boys are rounded up to be trained as young soldiers for the Taliban. The girl, who has taken the name "Osama", is thrust into a male-dominated world.

I have seen several films with this common theme. One of them was the Iranian film "Baran". The other was the American film "Yentl" where a young Jewish girl dresses as a boy in order to study. In both of these films, there was a romance. And "Yentl" was actually a comedy. But as I sat in horror watching "Osama", it didn't take long for me to realize that this story was no "Yentl."

When the young girl is finally discovered, the consequences are awful. She is taken to a stadium where there is a woman being stoned to death. The girl is saved, however, by an old man who agrees to marry her. She is then taken to a sad home where he keeps many wives. They are virtual prisoners for the rest of their lives and, even though some of them have children, there is no joy in that household. As they prepare the girl for her wedding night, there is a feeling of hopelessness and desperation and we know she will never see her own mother or grandmother again.

A film like this makes me again aware of the freedom and abundance I take for granted. My heart goes out to the poor people who have suffered so much under the Taliban and for the grueling poverty under which they still live.

"Osama" wins the Golden Globe!

"To save her family, a girl must become a boy. Her story is true. Her name is . . . Osama"

It was a triumph to see "Osama" winning the Golden Globe award for Best Foreign Language Film this year (2004).

In the past 100 years, Afghanistan has only produced 1 movie every 2.5 years.

Afghan Director/Writer Siddiq Barmak struggled for years, but kept the faith and followed his dream, among circumstances in which most would have given up long ago.

He was educated in Russia, but was forced into exile and moved to Pakistan, but later returned to Afghanistan to continue his film making career.

The influence for the film was a true story of an Afghan girl who dressed as a boy so that she could attend school, which was forbidden for girls during the Taliban rule. There are also similarities with the Majid Majidi film "Baran".

Afghanistan consists of four groups of people (Pashtuns, Hazara, Uzbeks, Tajiks). These people have seen around 24 years of continuous war in their country. They have suffered and died through famines, conflicts, invasions, landmines and destruction of their human rights.

In 2001, roughly 10% of the Afghan population was killed by the bombings. While an additonal 30% fleed to neighbouring Iran or Pakistan. The country and it's beautiful people were, yet again, destroyed.

With many men having died, women in Aghanistan, having no jobs and no education, have no one to support them and hence are left with an impossible and hopeless situation.

Siddiq Barmak has encompassed all these tragedies into his film "Osama".

In troubled times, the film "Osama" gives us great hope that America will accept, recognize and learn about the tragic lives of some poorest people on our planet.

Here in North America, people cheerfully line up to see assembly line garbage. It is my deepest wish that an intelligent thought provoking film such as "Osama" will prevail and overcome.

Excellent
Watch this movie if you would like to see a realistic portrayal of Afghanistan during the Taliban regime. This movie might be kind of slow moving for some people, I thought the pace was fine.

This movie effectively shows Afghanistan under the Taliban regime and the atrocities they commited on Afghans. The cinematography is wonderful. The sad thing is that there are still millions of people in the world who live in conditions just as bad and nothing is done to help them.

If you are not interested in Afghanistan or the Taliban regime, then don't bother watching this movie. If you would like to learn about Afganistan, then you should watch this movie.