Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.
I don’t think I was mentally prepared for Osama. This is not a film to breeze into lightly. The subject is simply too weighty and too tragically real to be anything other than a topic to be viewed with both care and caution. The first film made in Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban, Osama is the sort of film that would get director Siddiq Barmak ritually executed for apostasy should the Taliban ever track him down. His output has been pretty sparse; only this film and two others released since 2003, and nothing in the last five years. One hopes Barmak is doing something else or biding his time and not in a shallow, unmarked grave.
The film takes place in Afghanistan after the rise of the Taliban to power. With the Taliban in secure control of the country, the most repressive rules imaginable become enacted as law. Primarily, these laws affect women. No woman is allowed outside of her house without a male escort, and the revealing of any skin at all is more than simply frowned upon.
