Cruel reality, boring movie. Watched this because of 1001 movies list. Disturbing - yes, but that doesn't make a good movie. Simple plot, lots of crying, no fight for yourself or your family, just giving up. Distressed child in a disguise who doesn't understand what is expected from her and just wants to play. Predictable and annoying, as i said lots of crying and nagging, about a girl who worries too much about her hair. Other people try to help her, but she just doesn't give a ****, she doesn't even try and you see nothing, just sobby complains. Why did this one won golden globe for foreign film? "Good Bye Lenin" was way better. Well it seems the horror of real life is really effective if you want award, no one cares about quality. At least it's a quick watch, only 83 minutes.

Whoa, this was heartbreaking. Showing the plight of three generations of women in Afghanistan living under Taliban rule. Some of the scenes are cinematically beautiful, like the opening one where hundreds of women are protesting (the right to work) dressed in blue against the bleak desert landscape.Ultimately though this is just depressing as we follow a 12 year old girl posing as a boy in order to be able to leave her house without a legal (male) companion in order to support her mother and grandmother who've both been widowed. She cuts her hair, changes her clothes and begins working in a tea shop. She is terrified. Before long the Taliban start recruiting young boys (by force) to their Koran schools and the other students soon begin to suspect that she is a girl. The actress that plays Golbahari/Osama, her face shows such fear and despair throughout. And the ending, Oh damn....horrific, haunting and unforgettable. 6/6/14

image of survive. slices of fight and hope and dark society. a remarkable film for its cruel message. for the acting. for script who presents, in a honest, minimalist manner a contemporary tragedy. Osama is a manifesto for its force to remember not a part from Afgan realities but for the humanist speech about rules and courage, about limits and need to transform its in tools of a new life. touching and powerful, realistic and out of usual stereotypes, a travel, adventure and testimony, it is a special film , fresco of a world who, for many of us, remains only fiction or story for an ambiguous land. more important than artistic value - and this is admirable - is the role of beginning of a new society. the hope who has as mark this movie. Obama is a reflection subject and perfect occasion to understand the sufferance of a country.

Is it possible to agree with the filmmaker's point of view and still objectively review this film? Reading most of the comments above, apparently not. Let us separate the movie's substance from its execution. I'm no fan of the Taliban, but I'm not a fan of this film either. Way too long. Not a great performance by the girl. Did not work for me on an emotional level. NOT a good movie.In contrast, a successful movie of this gender is Hotel Rwanda. You didn't have to buy in to the filmmaker's agenda to be moved by it.My other problem with the other comments is that they blindly take the movie to be completely true. It's not journalism people! Sad but *true*? How do you know? The movie is *based* on reality. Not to be taken *as* reality. Even if the movie is spot-on true, that fact is irrelevant here. We're here to talk about the movie. Not the Taliban.