fluid, well edited, and beautifully shot (by Ebrahim Ghafuri, Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf‘s regular cinematographer).

The film has a deceptively complex structure. It begins with a feisty young boy, Espandi (Arif Herati), hustling some unseen figure behind a video camera. This does not turn out to be a film within a film, as one expects. The camera belongs to a foreign journalist who appears only later in the film, a victim of the Taliban. The puzzle gradually comes together. That journalist had been en route to photograph women in blue burqas marching for the right to work. The Taliban repels them with water hoses.

This sets the stage for a later plot point: The young girl’s widowed mother, not allowed to take a job, cannot support her daughter and herthen asked Maszlee to also include the RM31.5 billion losses suffered by Bank Negara Malaysia due to its foreign exchange dealings between 1992 and 1994.

Earlier, Ahmad also wanted to know if local history is taught at private schools in the country, such as the 60 Chinese independent schools.

Maszlee responded by saying Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, the government body responsible for coordinating the use of the Malay language and Malay-language literature in Malaysia, had been engaging with the independent schools.

Maszlee also said the history syllabus taught at schools was no longer solely based on the memorisation of facts, instead students are required to carry out projects.

The minister said the Education Ministry would set up a new a text book and curriculum improvement committee to work with existing committees and