FILM REVIEWS - Miscellaneous - http://maxpages.com/aeazine2/ISSUE_11_FILM_REVIEWS

Osama (2003)
Directed by Siddiq Barmak
Barmak Film

Despite the title's perceived implications, 2004's "Osama" is not a homage to the Al Qaeda leader who masterminded the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. It's rather a harrowing glimpse into the political/religious climate in Afghanistan from first time writer-director Siddiq Barmak. Centering on a family that's driven to desperate measures to survive without starving to death, "Osama" leaves an impression about what life was like in a country where Islamic fundamentalism was enforced by the Taliban. The first Afghan movie made in what we know now as "the post-Taliban era," "Osama" is based on actual occurrences when the Taliban were in power, which makes it all the more horrifying.
With the head-to-head political climate that has existed in America since the second Iraq war began, it's questionable at best who would go to see Siddiq Barmak's directorial debut if it had widespread release in American theaters, or if it would even be showed on screens across the country. There are, however, other factors to consider. Michael Moore, as many of you remember, was booed off the stage during the 2003 Academy Awards, but a year later "Fahrenheit 9/11" was one of 2004's most successful films, echoing the sentiment of many Americans whose stance on the Bush administration was summed up by the Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra as: "We are neither with Bush, nor the terrorists."
In his review of the movie, Roger Ebert noted Barmak is among the increasing number of Islamic dissenters who are taking chances to inform the world of the Taliban's fanatically strict fundamentalism and its treatment of women, often under the peril of their lives. In the same review he said watching "Osama" made him ponder what a movie on slavery would have been like if filmmaking had somehow existed in the nineteenth century. Going by something else he noted, I realized how pointless some scandals centering on pop divas in the media are, whether Britney Spears got a boob job, whether Kelly Osbourne could beat up Christina Aguilera, or what line of decency Janet Jackson crossed by exposing herself at the Super Bowl. They all would have been executed right next to each other if they lived in Afghanistan.
"Osama" made such an impression on guests of the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, the 2003 Bratislava International Film Festival, the 2003 London Film Festival, the 2004 Golden Globes, the 2004 Golden Satellite Awards and other festivals, Barmak walked away with twelve awards for his account of an Afghan family in an oppressive religious environment in which women are not allowed to work or venture outside their homes without a male escort. Widowed women often starve because they can't earn money and there's no man present to work for them or bring food to their homes. Under the Taliban, it is also perfectly legal to stone women to death if they behave outside the parameters of their faith.
Even more gripping about Barmak's first film is that its background is not historical, but something that has happened in recent years. It is not something you can look back on in the annals of distant history and wonder what would have happened if things were slightly different. It's something that went on in the world's backyard, that we didn't hear much about on the news, but that countless people have had to live with each day of their lives. And for many years before the Taliban fell things were different for them, since they didn't have the freedoms too often taken for granted here. By the time "Osama" ends, we have a better idea of what the Afghans had to live with under Taliban dominion.
"Osama" is no longer than 90 minutes in its entirety, yet the first five leave a mark on you in a manner that doesn't let you forget so easily. From the point of view of a handheld camera, we see Afghanistan circa 1996. A street hustler is making the rounds, selling his product to the film's main characters who pass him by in a fleeting moment. The hustler, a young kid barely past twelve, invites the camera's operator to "see the revolution" as a nearby street is flooded with an endless procession of women protesting for the right to work. Before much time passes, the demonstrators are set on by Taliban soldiers who spray them with water, subsequently opening fire with machine guns. The camera pans from scene to scene as protesters are brutally gunned down in the streets not five feet away.
From this point we are introduced to the characters from the opening sequence of "Osama," a mother and daughter (Zubaida Sahar and Marina Golbahari) who find themselves out of work when the hospital where they're employed is suddenly raided and closed down by the Taliban. The mother's husband and brother are both Taliban "martyrs," which means they're casualties of armed conflicts between Afghanistan and foreign invaders. Thus there is no one earn the money so they can survive. In spite of their predicament, the grandmother is a rock of strength for the family. We have an idea she's lived through worse, and chastises the mother for despairing over her lost father and brother.
The grandmother tries to give her granddaughter inner strength by telling a fairytale about a girl who became a boy by walking under a rainbow, hence the idea of the movie. Faced with the option of starvation or execution, the mother disguises her daughter as a boy, setting out to find work with a local grocer. This is a brave move, even if the facade won't last very long, and when the mother persuades the grocer to hire her we hope things will turn out all right. These scenes, most notably where the grandmother encourages strength in her granddaughter, offers the movie's sole ray of hope that never quite fades away, regardless of how brief it happens to be or how bad things become later.
On her first day at work, a Taliban follows the daughter home; this moment establishes a feeling of distant fear that grows when she is taken from her job the next day, presumably leaving her mother and grandmother to die. As for the grocery clerk, all we learn of his fate is that he went to Pakistan. The daughter is forced to join a procession of young children being herded to an unknown destination. There is a familiar face among them, the street hustler. Espandi (Arif Herati) tells the daughter they are to be trained by the Taliban, naming her Osama to keep her identity secret. A brave gesture as well, but another that is to prove futile, starting from when the other children suspect she is different.
The persistent taunting of the other kids is what leads to the Taliban discovering that she is a girl, through a bizarre and brutal trial by torture apparently meant as a test to determine her sex. Once her true identity is discovered, the fear and dread we felt with her becomes deep, heart-rending despair when she witnesses and experiences firsthand the brutal punishment meted out to those who the Taliban judge as violating their way of life. The girl is arrested and placed in a Taliban jail, where in a bizarre ironic twist we are reunited with characters we didn't see since the start of the film: the filmmaker, the head nurse at the hospital and the protesters who survived the Talban assault in the opening scene.
The final tragedy takes shape as the sentences are carried out to the filmmaker and the head nurse. The sentences are meted with brutal finality though doubt is raised about the charges. This doesn't make us optimistic about what fate the girl will suffer; but a swift execution would have been merciful next to the circumstances of her "pardon." I cannot reveal these circumstances, but it's safe to say that never seeing home again, or knowing what became of her mother and grandmother becomes the least of her problems. It's all the more horrible for us to feel as helpless as she does. All we can do, regardless of how one feels about the war in Iraq, is to feel thankful that such things don't happen here. - Dave Wolff

Shattered Glass (2003)
Directed by Billy Ray
Lions Gate Films

It's ironic that Stephen Glass' first novel ("The Fabulist"), written and published after his fall from grace, was about a struggling journalist who was ambitious enough to fabricate articles to advance his career. Its publication sounds like a testimony to art imitating life. From the 41 articles he published for The New Republic, 27 were constructed on sources and quotes that were nonexistent. In many cases the whole story in itself was an absolute figment of his imagination. I wonder how he successfully pulled off deceiving the public in a Washington, D.C. magazine for three straight years, but his storytelling talent must have been great if he held the public's attention long enough to keep them from doubting.
Having been a Heritage Foundation staff writer, and acquired contracts for Harper's, GQ, George and Rolling Stone, Glass was with The New Republic from 1995 to 1998, writing articles about everyone from the Drug Abuse Resistance Education to President Bush. His New Republic stint came to an abrupt halt in May of 1998 when an article on computer hackers, written as he was attending law school, was discovered to be a hoax. This led to an investigation conducted by the paper, which revealed 21 of Glass' stories were partially manufactured and 6 more were thoroughly fraudulent. Needless to say, he subsequently lost his job and all his previous contracts, exposed and disgraced as a mare's nest.
Glass' story was one of two major journalism scandals that have showed up in the media in recent years, the other involving Jayson Blair who invented evidence in support of “Arming America.” In an interview conducted around when “Shattered Glass” was released in 2003, Glass was quoted as saying it was “his own personal horror film.” While the Glass scandal didn't receive the media press of the Blair scandal, “Shattered Glass” was received well by reviewers, won seven awards in 2003 and 2004 and was nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards this year. As Billy Ray’s (“Earth 2,” “Hart’s War”) directorial debut, all this gave him enough juice to helm a few future big name productions.
It’s also ironic that Hayden Christensen’s appearance as Glass should coincide with the “Star Wars” trilogy. In “Star Wars,” his character is the future Darth Vader, the head of Imperial rulers who took governmental control using not so honorable means, to further their own careers. In “Shattered Glass,” his character controls the populase’s perception of reality from the nation’s capital, to further his own career. It took a while to find the comparison but in many ways it sticks. I can hear Obi-Wan Kenobi saying, “Glass was seduced by the dark side of the Force.” Only from the way we see Glass here, if this was “Star Wars” Vader would have been tried by the Alderaani government as a war criminal.
“Shattered Glass” seems to immediately damn Glass by a brief rundown of when The New Republic was founded, back in 1914. From these first moments, you might perceive the account that follows as an implication that he brought great dishonor to a magazine described as a “fixture of political commentary;” with a proud tradition of upholding the pursuit of truth. Or, as Christensen’s Glass proudly says while addressing a class at his old high school, “the in-flight magazine of Air Force One.” Glass cites an article he wrote to introduce his narrative, “Spring Breakdown," which he says he assumed a false identity for. This, incidentally is one of his pieces that were uncovered as fraudulent.
"Spring Breakdown" was supposedly about a group of Republican students who attended the Conservative Political Action conference of 1997. According to Glass, the students in question vented their disappointment in the turnout with a weekend of drinking, drug use and flagrant sexual antics at D.C.'s Omni Shoreham Hotel. All the movie illustrates from this weekend is a scene that plays like an asylum inmate's revision of "Revenge of the Nerds" with the student guests agreeing to have a gang bang with a fat chick with bad acne. In the next shot a woman runs from the room half naked, the students howling all the way down the hall after her as the intrepid Glass takes notes back in the hotel room.
From this point the movie cuts to Glass’ exploits at The New Republic, characterizing him as having mastered the art of brown-nosing higher-ups and generating sympathy from his coworkers (Chloe Sevigny, Melanie Lynskey) and his editor (Peter Sarsgaard) while rising to associate editor. It's a month before Glass' fall from grace, and he is well into conning his way to the top. "Shattered Glass" presents Glass as a self-pitying whiner who by the time his fallacious procedures in obtaining stories are laid open grows desperate to conceal his tracks. As a catch phrase, "Are you mad at me?" doesn't exactly carry the same weight as "I'll be back," "go for it" or "make my day" but it works fine for Glass.
We first suspect things will fall apart for Glass is when a letter reaches the New Republic office in response to his article on the conservative convention, that relates in detail the shenanigans reported as having happened in the hotel. The author was David Keene, who ran the conference that weekend and commented on a statement the article made of mini-bars in the hotel, saying there are none there. This required a fact-checking process of on the staff's part. At this point we all know Glass is in jeopardy of being exposed, which accounts for his nervousness. No one else there is aware of anything, just yet. This isn't an isolated incident, but the start of a pattern like knocking down dominos.
Besides this, we see Glass has a propensity for flattery and telling extravagant tales of how he managed to get his stories, such as how he pursued his story about the Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight in which Tyson bit Holyfield's ear. No one considers that Glass' old editor Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria, "Dodgeball") is fired after defending him on the hotel mini-bars in "Spring Breakdown." Glass has yet to meet Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn, "Daddy Day Care") and Andy Fox (Roasrio Dawson, "25th Hour"), however which happens after he pitches the idea for "Hack Heaven" that leads to his being suspended when it was learned that impersonation was involved in trying to make the article appear legitimate, and fired when realization set in that he had concocting sources and entire stories for the past three years.
The pitch for this article is by far the most outrageous tall tale told by Glass yet; it's hard to fathom that anyone who was present for the staff meeting would actually believe that 15 year old Ian Restil, or any other computer hacker, would have an agent and be hired by the company whose database he hacked (at the "national hackers' convention," no less). But they swallow it all, and Glass pursues the article. Once the article is published, Penenberg and Fox get curious and begin their own research on the alleged facts Glass divulged in his article. No proof of any kind comes of this research, not even proof of the existence of one Ian Restil. This is when things start to unravel in Glass' career.
Penenberg calls Glass, leaving a voice mail message with him that he would like to have a "companion piece" of the article, as he and Fox are working to expose him. Not only that, but his new editor is demanding some form of contact with Ian Restil. One thing leads to another between these two developments, and all of Glass' efforts to cover himself are stripped away. It's almost amusing to see how increasingly desperate and hysterical Glass becomes as his world starts crashing in on him as he continually tries to divert attention from himself, right up to the point where he loses his job in disrepute. With everything Glass did to try throwing suspicion off his story, it's a wonder he wasn't fined millions and imprisoned forever. Instead, he managed to publish a successful novel. It makes you wonder how people can get away with such behavior these days. - Dave Wolff

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