Terror of the Taliban

Like Mohsen Makhmalbaf's garlanded Kandahar, Siddiq Barmak's Osama springs up colourful and frightening.

It is set in Afghanistan at a time when the Taliban insisted that women must only venture out in male company. Behind ancient and closed doors, three generations of women - all played by non-actors - sit and rock. The grandmother predicts a cataclysmic end to it all, the mother worries about the lack of food on the table, and the 12-year-old daughter is silent with fear.

Soon, out of desperation, the girl poses as a boy - it's the only way to work, to eat. But she is herded into a Taliban training camp, and her disguise is soon discovered. She must face the Taliban justice system.

This is the first film to have come out of post-Taliban Afghanistan, and it is so level, so calm: no rant. It doesn't go to town showing the Taliban as spiteful racketeers, always threatening violence - violence is simply in the air. The story is told straight, and the images are like a bright ribbon running through: the girl up a leafless tree; a cobalt sea of burkas; a Western photographer having his last cigarette. It's visions like these that make the film take off.