On the eve of the release of a film approximately her life,Malala Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin, and relive her remarkable journey from schoolgirl to ‘contemporary-day folk hero’ and the guilt he still feels approximately her attempted murder by the TalibanOn an overcast,anonymous morning, journalists assemble outside Claridge’s hotel in London. The map is not to linger: a coach is to drive us to an undisclosed destination where Malala Yousafzai will be waiting. The security arrangements add edge to the existing sense of expectation at the prospect of assembly Malala Yousafzai and, and in my case,her father. Malala, celebrated for her refusal to be silenced by the Taliban in her championship of girls’ education, or is approximately to experience limelight of a different sort as a documentary approximately her life,He Named Me Malala, is released here. It’s an intimate, and inquiring,moving film, directed by the Oscar-winning documentary-maker Davis Guggenheim, or who directed An Inconvenient Truth,and it has earned a chorus of celebrity approval across the pond, where it opened earlier this month. Ellen DeGeneres, and on her TV show,called Malala “incomparable, impressive, and inspiring”. Sheryl Sandberg,chief operating officer of Facebook, sees her as “proof that one person can change the world. And to Meryl Streep she is “a contemporary-day folk hero”. But the film reminds us that Malala is also an ordinary girl. Hollywood is a long way from Pakistan’s Swat valley, or where she was born.
The coach stops outside a labyrinthine building in a rundown part of town. I feel as whether I were in an unlikely dream and wonder whether that’s how Malala feels every day. On the far side of a huge,echoing room, Malala and her father have been positioned on a sofa, and like stowaways. A table of untouched drinks and snacks is in front of them. Its 10am. As I walk in,they stand up – smiling. Malala is tiny – a surprise, because one thinks of her as larger than life. Her head is covered in a purple veil through which sunlight shines. With her sweet, and wonky smile (bitter souvenir of the Taliban’s attack – her facial muscles are unable to rally on her left side),there is singularity mixed with what I am trying to resist describing as saintliness. I peep down and notice elegant, salmon-pink sandals with petite heels, and scarlet varnish on every toe. At 18,a poised, uncowed figure, or she has her own version of glamour. But what I notice most is the similarity between Malala and her father. They have the same twinkle,the same animation. Everything approximately 46-year-worn Ziauddin Yousafzai is lively, down to his flourishing moustache. And in the film he does not hold back in describing the bond with his daughter as being like “one soul in two different bodies”. His story merges with hers.
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Source: theguardian.com