My sons are Marines that served both in Iraq and Afganistan and of course I was a former Marine. I read extensively and consider myself well read and I especially love ancient history. This movie was amazing and if you just listened and watched it explains so much the difference between how I raised my children in my Christain faith and how their children are raised. Seeing the faithfulness of the children to their parents and their teachers wishes was enlightening. You could see the fundamentalism expressed openly and the mistrust of non believers (non Muslim) as well as the man en-charge of the competition explain is moderate stance. You see the simple life and the modern inter mixed yet seemingly seamless. The attempt of modern communication merging with 700AD speculation and mistrust is real. Yet at the same time I question some of the judges motives who they picked as winners not saying that the young man who spoke no Arabic, memorized the whole Koran and recited so beautifully was not schooled in the appropriate rhythmic requirements was heralded as a genius ultimately will win a life and the little girl will loose hers. Again a great movie