Review

He Named Me Malala

Malala Yousafzai and her parents moved from their home in Afghanistan’s Swat Valley to Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, after she was shot by a member of the Taliban for speaking out for the right of women to be educated. Her story is told in Davis Guggenheim’s documentary He Named Me Malala.
Malala Yousafzai and her parents moved from their home in Afghanistan’s Swat Valley to Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, after she was shot by a member of the Taliban for speaking out for the right of women to be educated. Her story is told in Davis Guggenheim’s documentary He Named Me Malala.

Simply by remaining alive, 18-year-old Malala Yousafzai has managed to become the Pakistani Taliban's worst nightmare.

By eloquently calling for girls to have better access to education, she threatened the Taliban so much a Talib shot her in the forehead on Oct. 9, 2012. Yousafzai spent months struggling to live, much less recover, and has emerged with all of her previous courage intact.

He Named Me Malala

85 Cast: Documentary with Malala Yousafzai, Ziauddin Yousafzai, Toor Pekai Yousafzai, Khushal Yousafzai, Atal Yousafzai

Director: Davis Guggenheim

Rating: Rated PG-13 for thematic elements involving disturbing images and threats

Running time: 87 minutes

As He Named Me Malala, the new documentary from Oscar-winner Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth), reveals, she has become a forceful voice for feminism and has continued to say gutsy things in front of poerful men like President Barack Obama. In what could have been a rather meaningless photo op, she challenged the POTUS to rethink drone warfare, arguing it inflames the hatred that spurs terrorists.

Guggenheim recounts how the murder attempt forced her and her family to move from her native Swat valley, roughly 100 miles from Islamabad, to Birmingham, England. When she's not rubbing shoulders with Queen Elizabeth II or Bono, she's adapting to school in the United Kingdom and ribbing her brothers.

These are the most charming and insightful passages from the film because they aren't readily available on YouTube or Hulu. Those wanting to know more about her politics and her public persona can easily find them in clips from The Daily Show.

Because Yousafzai is in a unique situation, it's easy to forget that being the youngest recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize doesn't make her immune to adolescent crushes or tough physics tests. It seems even education advocates have classes that frustrate them.

Yousafzai and her family risk being attacked if they ever return to Pakistan, although she's now a hero to many there. It might have been more enlightening to look at how her brothers live in her formidable shadow or how adapting to life in the West has challenged or changed them. Including material like this isn't fluff. It shows that effective activists emerge not just from lofty places (the Swat valley is admittedly picturesque) but flesh and blood.

To be fair to Guggenheim, he does a fine job of summing up Yousafzai's young but growing legacy for those who were too busy keeping up with the Kardashians. Thanks to some animation that looks like impressionistic painting, we learn that she was named, in part, for an Afghani girl named Malalai, who in 1880 rallied local troops against British invaders but who lost her life in the battle. Think of her as a central Asian Joan of Arc.

What makes the film more than a simple hagiography is that Guggenheim includes extensive testimony from her father Ziauddin Yousafzai, who candidly admits that he worried that his own activism against the Taliban inspired and endangered his daughter. Watching him recalling his fears of losing her and seeing footage of his daughter's long road to recovery make the price of her courage and his seem more frighteningly real.

Guggenheim does also ask his telegenic subject some questions that don't have easy or forceful answers. She's understandably hesitant to discuss her own suffering. Still, unlike most politicians, she can discuss policy with a sense of passion and authority they lack. Having read the Koran thoroughly, she can cite passages that condemn what the Taliban are doing with greater fluency than they can rebut them. No wonder they found her a threat to their hold on Swat.

If Yousafzai challenges groups like the Taliban, she also forces outsiders to rethink their views of the Islamic world. Just because she wears a headscarf doesn't mean that Western societies aren't absolved of their own sexism or other shortcomings.

While comic Jon Stewart may have joked about wanting to adopt her, Yousafzai's firm but unintimidating manner makes her message all that more urgent and worthy of the big screen.

MovieStyle on 10/09/2015

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