Osama Review

"I wish God hadn't created women," laments a widow (Zubaida Sahar) who, because of a Taliban law that forbids women from working or traveling outside the home without male companionship, becomes trapped inside her house with her elderly mother and young daughter (Marina Golbahari). Fearing they'll die of starvation without an income, the mother - taking her cues from a fable her own mother repeatedly recites - decides that she'll disguise her daughter as a boy and send her out to work. By chopping the young girl's hair off and dressing her in men's clothing, the mother transforms her pretty daughter into a boy and gets her a job at the dairy shop run by a friend of the girl's dead father. Yet the ruse is soon put in jeopardy when the girl - re-named, in a bit of heavy-handed symbolism, Osama - is recruited along with the rest of the town's boys to join the Taliban.
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