Thursday, February 11, 2016

He Named Me Malala (Documetary Film Review by Bob Racine)



                               1 hr & 27 min, color, 2015
                                               
What were any of us doing between the ages of twelve and fifteen?  I will tell you what we were not doing in all likelihood.  We were not taking solitary stands against entrenched bastions of evil, ones that held our society in the grip of fear and intimidation.  We were not verbally and openly attacking systems of tyranny, systems that forbade public dissent on pain of death.  We were not risking the bullet or the knife or the sword to demand education for ourselves where it was being grossly denied.  Perhaps during those years we were being primed for future warfare against ideas and ideologies that we saw as repressive.  It does not require much moxie to express outrage over slavery or organized crime, certainly not in a country that thrives upon freedom of speech and belief and religious practice.  But we were not for baring our necks.
                                               
There is no doubt in my mind that at least 90% of Americans and inhabitants of the free world have by now heard the name Malala Yousafzai.  We know of her as a Pakistani girl from that country’s Swat Valley who almost paid the ultimate price for her outspokenness on the subject of education for members of her sex.  At age twelve in 2009 she began contributing to a BBC blog her views on the need for girls to go to school.  For this activism an attempt was made upon her life by a Taliban gunman two years later in October of 2012, a bullet to the head that was meant to silence her and make her an example to others who may be so bold.  Thanks to the miracle working powers of modern medicine she survived.
                                               
All that I knew, and I guess most all of us have known. 
                                     
But before seeing this lovely little jewel of a film about her, I did not know the derivation of her name.  It seems her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, a strong advocate for universal education and an educator himself, gave her the name, obtaining it from a Pashtun tale about a mythical young woman of the same name who at an indeterminate time in the past inspired her country to resist the aggression of another nation.  She led the troops like Joan of Arc and died on the battlefield from an enemy gun.  It is a story he had told her among others many times.  He named her Malala because he saw in her a similar soul and spirit of independence and courage, while she was yet a small child.  It is as if she has been attempting to live up to the father’s vision.  Ziauddin discloses that while waiting for his daughter to come out of her coma, he worried that she would blame him for her misfortune.  I was a child; you should’ve stopped me!  But upon awakening, her first words were, “Where is my father?”   She was worried that he had been targeted too.  One could easily conclude that she had been trying to live up to the image of the mythical girl, but in time she revealed in interviews that her father did not choose her path for her or push her into it. 
                                               
Here is a wonder child who knows her own mind and has no regrets about the price she has had to pay.
                                               
To add wonder to wonder, she has even forgiven the Taliban.  She can only talk coherently through one side of her mouth, her voice projected with a very slight lisp.  That is because the bullet did permanent damage to the left side of her brain, and the hearing in her left ear is gone forever.  But she does not speak with any bitterness about those who tried to kill her.  She is a child of rare insight and wisdom, and she has an infectious sense of humor.  How could just anyone experience a body trauma like hers and come away from the suffering with a bright smile for members of her family and for everyone with whom she is seen interacting?  (That family, incidentally, her parents and her two younger brothers, have been granted asylum with her in the United Kingdom since the attack.)
                                               
This documentary has been conceived and produced in the best tradition of biographical features.  It does not take an academic approach to its subject matter; there is no overriding voice of narration, no news-hour styled dictation of facts and details in some neat chronological order.  It is poetic and wistful and meditative, a work of small but penetrating art, moody and thoughtful but with a soft texture.  There is hand drawn brush stroke animation that elevates without verbiage some of Malala’s inner journey and the gift of her country and culture; the portraitures intermix with home movie shots out of her family’s past.  And that master of the musical soundtrack Thomas Newman (think of “Finding Nemo”) has woven a lovely score that makes the aspiring heart sing, even when ugly scenes come into view, as some of them must.           
                                               
A man by the name of Davis Guggenheim (think of “An Inconvenient Truth”) is responsible for the film.  It well earns its PG-13 rating, by which it is made viewable for teens, with or without their families accompanying them.  The kids would do well to see it.
                                               
The climactic scene is Malala being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014.  But this followed other honors: the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011, Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize the same year, and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2013.  She gave a speech at the United Nations on her sixteenth birthday; a clip of that event is included in the film.  When she turned eighteen she opened a school for Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon.  She has made wonderful use of her celebrity to give back to others what she has had to suffer in order to obtain for herself.
                                               
Her celebrity, on the other hand, may be something of a mixed blessing for her.  I personally wonder if she has been deprived of the ordinary, basic experiences of childhood.  Has she in fact completed her childhood?  At least she shows no inhibition about being playful with her siblings.  It is refreshing to see her lovingly sparring with them in the presence of her parents.  She is gaming when in the company of those she loves.  But in another scene she is questioned about whether she has ever dated, whether she might seek out boyfriends on her own initiative.  Her response is negative and coy – a territory she is not ready to explore, even though she is almost on the verge of womanhood.  And more troubling for me is the moment when an interviewer remarks that she shows great resistance to talking about the pain of the suffering she has endured.  She clams up on that theme with a weak, self-conscious smile.  She has been through a nightmare, the kind that has prolonged psychological aftereffects.  Philosophizing only goes so far in the direction of inner healing.  Has she ever seen a counselor?  Has she really attempted to complete that suffering?  Should we be concerned for her on that account? 
                                               
These are questions that would be stimulating to explore in a follow-up discussion after a screening of the film.
                                               
Of course, this documentary will not be the final word about this young woman.  What other projects will she spearhead, what other schools for children denied the gift of the classroom?  Where will she go from where she is?  Will she ever return to her home country, which she misses?  Will she chance another attack by the Taliban, who have warned that if she returns, she will be killed?   For all this film’s beauty and power it is a mere beginning of an ongoing quest.  God speed, Malala!


To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.

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