The Stranger

Based on a novel by Michael Muhammad Knight, and directed by Eyad Zahra, The Taqwacores is a raw and messy feature film expressing punk energy in Muslim terms. The center of the story is a Pakistani-American college student, but its main punk power is generated by a young and rebellious woman who wears a burka. Her Islamic radical feminism is all that revolution should be: destructive and creative, old and new, angry and cheerful. The burka does not negate her femininity but strangely empowers it; somehow her sexlessness makes her sexuality all the more apparent and dangerous. The timing for this film could not be better—it arrives in Seattle during Egypt’s social eruption. For the Islamic world, tomorrow can only be a brighter day. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, 7 and 9 pm, $6–$9) by Charles Mudede

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