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Not Without My Daughter (1991)

Rate: 10
Viewed: 5/15

NotMy
5/15: I remember seeing Not Without My Daughter over fifteen years ago and being drawn to the story.

Revisiting the film, my opinion hasn't changed a bit. It's hard for me to label a race, religious, or ethnic group in one word, but when it comes to Muslims, I can't help but think of "controlling." They're also the worst offenders when it comes to women's rights. I suspect it has a lot to do with lack of education on both sides.

At the turn of the 20th century, literacy rate in the Muslim world was only 15% with the vast majority of women illiterate. Today, 60% of 1.6 billion Muslims cannot read as most children are shut out of classrooms. In 2013, over 300,000 books had been published in the United States, but the Muslim world accounted for roughly 2%, thanks to censorship and markets that can't be found whatsoever in some countries. In fact, it ranks last worldwide in reading audience.

Approximately 75% of 100 million Arabs between 15 and 45 years old are unable to read, and the average reading time per year is six minutes for each Arab. In "Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science," Hillel Ofek says, "Although Spain is hardly an intellectual superpower, it translates more books in a single year than the entire Arab world has in the past thousand years."

All of the aforementioned facts are significant in understanding why Muslims are who they are, having been brainwashed by their religion. Hence, many Muslim countries are among the most dangerous in the world with nine of them in the top ten. In other words, their lack of education is what breeds terrorism. So, I must ask Betty Mahmoody this: "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?" However, I can understand her position which was between a rock and a hard place. But it's a very bad decision that she made from the outset, no matter what.

Although Not Without My Daughter is drama, I like to think of it as a horror picture. It's terrifying because I can't imagine myself in a strange country and not to be protected by basic rights that I take for granted. The reason why the film gets a '10' from me is the ultimate realism which is convincing and stark. Also, the acting is very good and holds up well. All of the thespians play their parts to perfection. It's almost like being there.

All in all, Not Without My Daughter is a scary movie.