Oh, boy! Everyone should see this movie!

I had the distinct pleasure of watching Osama last night. Wow, what a happy movie! My favorite part was when Osama and her friend skipped through a field of daisies hand-in-hand and then went out for ice cream, and then at the end, when Osama got her very own pony!! When you see a movie like that, it just makes you feel so gratified and full of faith in humanity, doesn’t it?

(Warning, spoilers…)

My non-god, what a heart-wrenching 80 minutes. A 12 year-old girl who lives with her mother and grandmother in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan has to cut her hair and dress as a boy so she can get a job to feed her family, because they’re not allowed to leave their house without a male escort. She knows full well that the penalty will be death if she is caught, and caught she is. After she is sent to school / military training with a bunch of other boys, the Mullah in charge grows suspicious because she chickens out of climbing a tree. She has a friend who knows her secret and tries valiantly to protect her, but she is discovered when she is hung in a well for a few hours and the stress causes her to start her period. The judge forgives her, but she is given to the Mullah as a wife slave. The guy has two other wives already, who seem to take some sort of sick pleasure in telling her all about how he ruined their lives.

If there’s anyone who can watch this movie and still defend the gender apartheid that goes on in some Islamic societies, well… I don’t think they deserve to call themselves human.

Tags: Movies