Saw this on disc yesterday. It deals with the plight of females (and males, for that matter) in Taliban Afghanistan. Half way through, my wife said “What a country!”, echoing my sentiments exactly.
The film is almost documentary in its style, non-sentimental, spare and low on overt shocks. It’s pleasantly short (about 80 minutes, I guess) and leaves you grateful for not being born somewhere like that.
The abiding image for me is the young boys (not yet moulded, and who’d far rather be out kicking a football or mucking about) cross-legged bowing automaton-like over a copy of the Koran. You can see how they’re going to become like the majority of the male adults in the film unless things change.
I saw this about a year and a half ago at the Toronto Film Festival. It affected me more than any other film that year and so much so that I can’t bring myself to watch it again. They do a good job of making you feel strongly for the girl which makes the ending that much more heartbreaking.
We DVR’d this and started watching it this weekend. My nine year old daughter came in and started watching it with us. We had to stop about halfway through for bedtime and couldn’t finish yet. Can somebody spoil the end for me and let me know what I might need to prepare my daughter for? She’s a bit sensitive, so if something brutal happens to the girl I’d like to prep her. I’ve had to explain a lot of stuff in this one. Thanks.
BTW, I assume the film is not an actual documentary but shot in documentary style. Is there any backstory on how they got away with shooting this? Was it done while the Taliban were still in power. Even today it’s hard to imagine filming a girl in a mosque.