By Rasha Almaqaleh
I have recently watched the film ‘Wadjda’. It is a Saudi
feature film directed by a Saudi woman, Haifaa Almansour. It was exclusively
shot in Saudi Arabia and was first released in 2012. The storyline focuses on
the status of Saudi women in the Saudi society through a story of an
11-year-old girl who longs to ride a bike in order to race against her male
friend, Abdullah, a boy from her neighborhood. Wadjda glimpses a green bike
loaded on a moving truck so she follows it. The truck stops at a toy store to
unload the bike and Wadjda stops there to check it. Seeing her checking the
bike, the old bearded salesperson tells her the bike is expensive and she
cannot afford it. While her mother is busy worrying about her husband getting a
second wife, Wadjda struggles alone to raise the money she needs to buy the
bike. At the end of the story, Wadjda gets the bike she wants as a gift from
her mother and she wins the race against her friend Abdullah. The film was very
well received by Western audiences. But was it well received because it is a
masterpiece or there are other factors behind its alleged success?
As a matter
of fact, the film is basically addressed to the western mind. This is well
illustrated by the writer/director’s desperate attempts to unnecessarily load
the scenes with the flaws of the Saudi society. For example, in one of the scenes, Wadjda and
Abdullah pass by a house where an old man stands at the door shaking hands with
some people coming to express their condolences and sympathy. Abdulla then
explains to Wadjda that the son of that man killed himself in a suicidal
bombing and tells her that the suicide bomber is already in heaven in the
company of 70 brides as a reward of his action. Another good example is the
scene of the underage-married girl who brings her wedding photos to show her
friends at school. It seemed that the writer was literally ‘listing’ the
problems instead of efficiently using them in the logic evolution of the story.
While such problems do exist in Saudi Arabia and other so- called radical Islamic
societies, displaying them in this superficial way doesn’t aim to raise the
awareness of Saudis but rather it intends to present a shocking image of a
different culture to the Western audiences; who basically come to watch such
films in order to ‘be shocked’! Consequently, the film was easily absorbed by
Western viewers even though the script is dull and the long pauses cannot go
unnoticed.
Even though it’s very well known that Saudi Arabia is ruled
and dominated by a royal family that forbids democracy, human rights, freedom
of speech, etc, Almansour completely ignores this key point in understanding
the reality of the Saudi society and thus the position of Saudi women. She deliberately
blames the society for the degraded status of women as though the regime takes
no responsibility and has no effect on the society. That’s why Almansour tries
in some of the scenes to depict a good image of the Saudi political regime,
i.e. the election scene. In addition to that, at the final scene where Wadjda achieves her
goal and eventually rides her own bicycle, the director focuses the camera- in
blatant hypocrisy- on a poster of the Saudi king and some officials, pasted
onto the back of a bus. The sentence title of the poster is “May our country be
always strong”! Through that scene, the director suggests that Saudi women
could be liberated under the rule of Al Saud family implying that the royal
family does not play a big part, if any, in the status of Saudi women.
Given
these points, the film ‘Wadjda’ does not discuss seriously the problems of Saudi
women. Instead, it thrills the imagination of the Western viewer who already
has preconceived thoughts of such societies. Thereby, if you belong to this category,
I would definitely recommend you not to miss this film! You would most likely
love it because it would give you what you basically look for. But, if you genuinely
want some deep knowledge away from stereotypes and prejudices, this film is not
a good choice.
