Osama (2003)
Osama arrived in 2003 as a genuinely singular piece of cinema: the first film to be shot entirely in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime. That fact alone gives it a peculiar, almost documentary weight before a single frame has played. The Taliban had effectively abolished cinema in the country during their rule through the late 1990s, making the act of production here a political statement as much as an artistic one. The film draws on the real, documented practice of bacha posh, in which Afghan families with no male breadwinner would raise a daughter as a son out of social and economic necessity, and sets it against the specific, crushing conditions imposed on women under Taliban law. Women could not work, could not leave the house unaccompanied by a male relative, and could not attend school. The film does not need to editorialise on any of this. The facts carry their own terrible momentum.
Writer and director Siddiq Barmak had been a prominent figure in Afghan cinema before the Taliban closed the country's film industry down, and Osama represented both a personal and national act of reclamation. Produced through an unusually spread coalition of international supporters, including Ireland's LeBrocquy Fraser Productions, Japan's NHK, and the Netherlands' Hubert Bals Fund among others, the film is a genuinely international effort to give Afghan storytelling back its voice. Barmak drew on the moral support and mentorship of Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, whose own production house is credited, and whose influence on the spare, observational style is not hard to detect. If you have read our reviews of A Moment of Innocence or Salaam Cinema, you will recognise the broader Iranian tradition of socially conscious, formally restrained filmmaking that fed into this picture. The budget was modest in the extreme, which lends the film a rough, urgent texture that a more polished but unremarkable production could never have achieved.
The cast is almost entirely made up of non-professional actors, and this was a deliberate, considered choice. Marina Golbahari, who plays the girl at the centre of the story and whose character is given the name Osama as part of her disguise, was reportedly discovered by Barmak on the streets of Kabul. She had no prior acting experience. The supporting cast, including Zubaida Sahar as the mother and Arif Herati as a sympathetic boy who becomes something of a reluctant ally, follow the same principle: real people giving real reactions within carefully constructed fictional circumstances. It is a mode of filmmaking that shares something with the child-centred dramas explored in our review of Turtles Can Fly, Bahman Ghobadi's portrait of Kurdish children in northern Iraq from the same period, another film that chose to look at geopolitical crisis through the eyes of those least equipped to withstand it.
We are absolutely saturated with cinema set in Afghanistan. From the Soviet invasion to the endless, grinding War on Terror, the country has frequently served as a backdrop for foreign filmmakers looking to capture geopolitical conflict.
But Siddiq Barmak’s 2003 picture Osama cuts through that noise with a quiet, devastating intimacy. It strips away the grand military manoeuvring to focus on a singular, terrifying reality: a preteen girl forced to masquerade as a boy just to secure work and keep her mother and grandmother from starving under the suffocating, misogynistic rules of the Taliban regime.
The emotional weight of this premise rests entirely on the shoulders of its young cast, and I found their performances to be remarkably grounded. Marina Golbahari, in the titular role, carries the film with a quiet, wide-eyed desperation that is utterly heartbreaking to witness. The dialogue is sparse but incredibly effective, particularly in the scenes shared with her grandmother. Those moments crackle with a raw, lived-in sorrow that perfectly captures the quiet desperation of a family trying to survive in a world that has actively legislated their existence out of the picture.
Make no mistake, this is a profoundly harrowing tale. The tension of the masquerade is palpable, with every glance and misstep threatening to unravel their fragile safety. When the inevitable discovery occurs, the film refuses to offer any Hollywood-style reprieve or heroic defiance. Instead, it leans into a stark, unvarnished reality. The conclusion is unsatisfyingly bleak, leaving you with a heavy, lingering sense of injustice. It is entirely appropriate for the subject matter, even if it leaves you feeling thoroughly drained by the time the credits roll.
Osama is not a film you watch for light entertainment; it is a vital, deeply affecting piece of historical witness. Barmak managed to craft a profoundly sad, yet undeniably important portrait of survival against impossible odds. It might not offer a comforting resolution, but its raw honesty and emotional truth make it a highly compelling, unforgettable watch.
Osama sits in a small but genuinely important category of films that exist not to entertain in any conventional sense, but to bear witness. Its 83-minute runtime is not a brisk watch so much as a concentrated one, and the international coalition behind it is itself a statement that the story demanded to be told and heard beyond Afghanistan's borders. Viewers who found the documentary short Three Songs for Benazir resonant will find familiar emotional territory here, though Osama pushes further into fiction's capacity to make structural oppression feel personal and immediate. Barmak made something raw and unresolved, which is precisely why it stays with you. Some films close a door quietly behind them as the credits roll. This one leaves it open.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2003 | Watched: 2026-08-06
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Osama (2003) on YouTube
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