Osama

This review was written for the theatrical release of "Osama."

Billed as the first entirely Afghan film shot on home soil since the rise and fall of the Taliban, Siddiq Barmak's "Osama" ends up being of greater historical significance than of any lasting artistic merit.

A first feature by Siddiq Barmak, the title actually refers not to bin Laden, but to the male name (in Afghanistan, Osama is about as commonplace as John is here) assumed by a 12-year-old girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to earn money for her family.

Barmak, who obviously labored under difficult conditions to make the film, has constructed a particularly grim version of a Grimm Brothers tale, intended to serve as a bare-bones parable for the treatment of Afghan women under the oppressive regime.

The film, which is being released by United Artists, follows the plight of the young girl (affectingly played by the wide-eyed Marina Golbahari, with no previous acting experience), whose struggling mother and grandmother cut her hair and dress her in her dead father's clothing and find work for her assisting a sympathetic grocer.

But practically after starting the job, she's whisked away to attend enforced religious classes and Taliban military training for adolescent males. Despite her attempts to fit in, her femininity ultimately gives her away and she is put on trial for the impersonation.

Just as she is about to be sentenced to death, she's rescued by a creepy old troll of a mullah, only to be shackled in a tower as the latest of his many brides.

An obvious admirer of the works of the Makhmalbaf filmmaking clan, whose images have been recycled in "Osama," Barmak tells his story with a heavy hand, and while it is one that certainly needs to be told, it is Golbahari's unblinking big brown eyes that ultimately convey the message most convincingly.