MOVIE REVIEW
He Named Me Malala
Movie Review
A
ged only 18, the brave and articulate Malala
Yousafzai has seen more of life – and the world –
than most octogenarians. The complexities inherent in her activism and the social and political nuances
of her part of the world are probably impossible for a single film to decipher and deconstruct. That is the feeling
that one comes away with after watching Davis Guggenheim’s 87-minute documentary tribute to Malala’s courage. The film packs a great deal of info into its limited
runtime, but still skims the surface of her multi-layered
reality.But that is not to say that He Named Me Malala, a rare feature-length non-fiction film to hit multiplex
screens in India, fails to bring alive the teenager behind
the intrepid crusader for the right of all girls to be educated. He Named Me Malala is a fine and engaging film
that, in terms of the broad biographical details, spans the
entire spectrum of the story of the world’s youngest-ever
Nobel Peace Prize winner. Besides throwing light on
her relationship with her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, He
Named Me Malala touches upon the historical backdrop
against which she, then only 15 years old, was nearly
killed by the Taliban. It briefly traces the emergence of
Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah (he has since been killed
in an air strike), who claimed responsibility for the October 2012 assassination attempt on Malala.He was nicknamed Radio Mullah for his incendiary broadcasts inciting his armed men to eliminate champions of education
for girls.The Taliban threat still hangs over her, which is
why Malala cannot return home. Her heart yearns to see
“the dirty streets and the river” of her town again. But as
things stand, there isn’t a hope in hell of her making the
trip back to Swat Valley. A global icon barred from her
own homeland: it is a situation filled with pathos. The
film introduces us to Malala’s friends Shazia Ramzan
and Kainat Riaz, who were also shot in their school bus
but survived. While moving from the events that led up
to the murderous assault on Malala (presented in one of
the film’s many animated sequences) to the act’s dramatic aftermath, the film takes us right into the Yousafzai
home in Birmingham, UK. The girl with a titanium plate
on the left side of her face is, of course, made of steel,
but at home she is like any other girl her age. She frets
over her homework and school progress report, gets into
good-humoured flaps with her brothers, does a Google
search on Roger Federer and coyly admits that Shahid
Afridi and Brad Pitt are her heartthrobs. As Guggenheim
draws her out, what emerges is a vivid and gripping portrait of a girl who is at home in the world. Behind the
cosy family scenes that we are witness to, there is a
whole universe that she, helped considerably by a proud
father, inhabits with unwavering confidence and commitment. In the film, she exudes exemplary composure as
she speaks to girls in a newly opened school in Kenya.
In Nigeria, she exhorts the country’s then president to
step up efforts to rescue the 300 girls abducted by Boko
Haram. Malala’s voice could not be silenced by bullets,
and that part of her life receives lopsided attention in the
film. However, Guggenheim does not at any point suggest that there is nothing more to her or that her activist
persona emerged only after being shot by the Taliban.
The question was, Malala says on camera, “whether to
be silent or to speak up”. She of course chose the latter
course, and her words have resonated around the world
ever since.
As the film unambiguously asserts, the fearless campaigner was born well before Malala came under the
global spotlight. The ‘He’ of the title is obviously Malala’s
father Ziauddin – a clear indication that in the region she
comes from, men call the shots. But her dad, who ran
a school for girls in his home village and instilled in her
daughter a fighting spirit, is all for gender equality. “He
named me Malala,” says the girl, “but he did not make
me Malala.” The making of the global campaigner for
girls’ education is linked to the name that she got at birth.
Ziauddin christened his only daughter after Malalai, an
Afghan woman who led a revolt against British invaders
in the 1880 Battle of Maiwand. Has any father ever been
as prophetic about his daughter? While most of He
Named Me Malala works, it would have been an even
more effective film had Guggenheim desisted, among
other things, from overlaying the film with an obtrusive
background score aimed at underscoring its emotional
content – and intent. In He Named Me Malala, the Oscar-winning Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) leans
at times towards the manipulative and overly reverential.
But such is the power of the story that it is easy not