He Named Me Malala (DVD REVIEW)
He Named Me Malala
DVD
Review
by Kam Williams
This
Critic's Favorite Documentary of the Year Released on DVD
Malala
Yousafzai was named after a girl who spoke out and was killed for
speaking out. That folk hero was a flag-bearing teenager who perished
in 1880 while rallying fellow Pashtun resistance fighters to an
unlikely victory over British invaders in a pivotal battle of the
Second Anglo-Afghan War.
After
settling on the very meaningful moniker, Malala's father inscribed it
into his genealogy because no females were mentioned in his family
tree stretching back several centuries. Furthermore, Ziauddin
Yousafzai resolved to raise his daughter to see herself as the equal
of any boy.
While such
an approach might be unremarkable in the West, it was downright
heretical in the Swat District of Pakistan, a hotbed of Islamic
fundamentalism in the late 20th Century. For, over the course of
Malala's formative years, much of the country was being terrorized by
the Taliban which had taken to blowing up any schools which had the
temerity to admit girls.
In defiance
of their militant mullah's absolute mandate against any female
education, Mr. Yousafzai not only allowed his daughter to
matriculate, but even spurred her to speak out online as an equal
rights advocate blogger. This only served to infuriate Mullah
Fazlullah who issued a fatwa against her over the radio, which led to
an assassination attempt on a school bus by one of his followers.
Malala, who
was just 15 at the time, was lucky to survive the bullet to the
brain. While she languished in the hospital unresponsive and
attached to tubes, her worried folks had no idea whether their
daughter would ever even be able to walk or talk again.
She did
eventually emerge from the coma, though deaf in one ear and in need
of months and months of rehabilitation just to master simple bodily
functions most people take for granted. Initially, she blamed her dad
for her plight, since he was the one who'd cultivated her activist
streak. "I am a child," she said, "You are my father.
You should have stopped me. What happened to me is because of you."
But
eventually her health was substantially restored, and she became a
stoic and serene symbol of resistance to radical Islam. With
continued death threats hanging over their heads, the Yousafzai
family (including Malalal's mom and two younger brothers) was forced
to resettle in England where she would become a champion of oppressed
females all over the planet.
Directed by
Oscar-winner Davis Guggenheim.(for An Inconvenient Truth), He Named
Me Malala is an emotionally-engaging biopic chronicling the close
father-daughter relationship which enabled Malala to flourish in the
midst of sheer intolerance. Their tender interplay is intermittently
enhanced by animated interludes which further intensifies the sincere
sentiment displayed on screen.
The picture
makes an inexorable march to Malala's emergence as an international
icon, culminating in her becoming the youngest person ever to win the
Nobel Peace Prize. Pack the Kleenex for this powerful portrait ably
illustrating the indomitability of the human spirit.
This
critic's pick as the best documentary of 2015!
Excellent (4
stars)
Rated PG-13
for death threats, mature themes and disturbing images
Running time: 88 minutes
Distributor: Fox Home
Entertainment
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