He Named Me Malala details the life of Pakistani female activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai. Instead, Guggenheim likens Ziauddin to Malala and emphasizes the symbolic meaning of her name, which derives from that of an Afghan folk hero.
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Malala Yousafzai became a global icon after surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban in Pakistan.
In this respect, the reverse storytelling works: We feel affection for Malala and understand her backstory by the time we see her speaking out for girls’ education.
The film opens unexpectedly, with a handsome animated sequence recounting the legend of the young woman for whom Malala was named, a 19th century freedom fighter against the British in Afghanistan. But – ironically – director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for “Superman”) gives Malala’s most unkind skeptics just such reason to be dickishly cynical, mythologizing her actions and downplaying what makes her truly commendable: that she remains optimistic, and continues to criticize the Taliban, even knowing they still want her dead. Despite his Oscar win, Guggenheimis neither a distinctive visual stylist nor an intellectually rigorous filmmaker who asks hard questions. The film juxtaposes Yousafzai’s strong family bonds and elevated celebrity status, with the tragic events which left her permanently wounded by Taliban gunmen and led her on the path to her current activism. She has two little brothers who are completely unawed by their sister’s worldwide celebrity, and the younger one, Atal, is a mischievous boy who steals more than one scene in this movie. The Afghani fable of a young woman who raised her voice to inspire her people is Malala’s namesake. But mostly – and this is not a criticism of Malala – the teenager comes across as “on message”, conscious of her public mission and circumspect in her responses. To prevent the movie from degenerating into a series of talking heads, he employs animator Jason Carpenter to illustrate a few of the anecdotes Malala and Ziauddin tell about their life in the Swat Valley.
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While the film is marred by structural storytelling issues, Malala’s inspirational spirit is undeniable, and it shines through in the documentary.
