Wadjda is a forthcoming film directed by Saudi filmmaker Haifaa al Mansour. As she states on the film's website, "I’m so proud to have shot the first full-length feature ever filmed entirely inside the Kingdom." Judging by the trailer, a warm, humane, and charming film is expected.
In It's Not about Religion, I briefly discuss depictions of Arabs in film and how the two-dimensional characterizations traditionally served up by Hollywood are slowly improving, with independent and foreign films functioning as the vanguard. I'm guessing Wadjda might be a film I would have listed alongside titles like Paradise Now (2005) and Amreeka (2009), as examples of this improvement. I would also add the excellent Iranian film A Separation (2011); though Persian, Iran falls within Hollywood's reductionist view of the Middle East. (For my short review of the film Argo, see my Mar. 5, 2013, blog post.)
Films like Wadjda not only help to humanize the people living in the Middle East, but in this particular case might shed some much-needed light on Saudi society. A good example of this is the Saudi Arabia episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations [link below]. Although Bourdain can at times reveal his own nationalist assumptions, operating within the margins of respectable centrist opinion (think New York Times), his programs have repeatedly offered considerate, open-minded glimpses into the Middle East. (We'll soon see how he handles Israel in season two of Parts Unknown.)
Saudi Arabia is not merely conservative and repressive. Its human rights record is probably one of the worst in the Middle East. But because the Kingdom is one of the major (and original) US clients in the region, it is rare to read in the top-tier newspapers about just how repressive the country is; similar to journalistic treatment of Israel, Saudi Arabia is also afforded a certain discretion in the American news media.
Washington has looked the other way while Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have suppressed Arab Spring energies in their countries. Welcoming and/or promoting democracy only becomes a priority when it makes good propaganda (as in the US invasion of Iraq), or if there is mass popular protest in a country and the situation is too far out of control (as in Egypt). Nevertheless, even the Saudi royals know that the Arab Spring experience has changed the Middle East forever, and that they too must make adjustments. Wadjda might be a sign of such gradual liberalization.
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/wadjda
No Reservations "Saudi Arabia":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoiQ6EI8Uss
