FILM THAT CHANGE PERSPECTIVES

“Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out”

What’s in the frame?

Wadjda, is a film about a girl born with a rebellious soul, raised in a submissive society. Wadjda a girl of eleven, living with her mother and abandoned by her father. The reason as to why her father left the family, is a reason every Saudi women fears, Wadjda’s mother was unable to bear him a son.

The movie breaks a lot of barriers, it was written and directed by a female director Haifaa al-Mansour, the first feature film to be entirely shot in Saudi. The movie stands out for its simple theme but it also underlines the grave stigma that the Saudi society has against women. It gives us a peek into the mystic, that is life inside Saudi Arabia.

The path to discovering this movie was through a novel of the same name. The cover page of the book illustrates a veiled young girl covered from tip to bottom, standing as high as she possibly can leaning against her most precious possession, her green bicycle. The feminist reader that I am was curious to know the story of this unlikely pair. It is fair to say that the director went through every nook and cranny of the book, and she has captured the raw emotion that comes with being vulnerable and getting ignored at every arena of life.

What’s out of the frame?

Saudi is a nation notorious for its harsh sharia law particularly against women. The Saudi monarch has only recently given woman the right to vote and to contest in elections. According to Shia law the blood money of a female is half the blood money of a male.

Change is still a taboo in Saudi Arabia, but a few women like Haifaa al-Mansour is making a stand against it. In a recent interview she revealed the struggle it took to film this movie, as she was forced to film it inside a van.

This incredible movie has opened a door for the women of Saudi Arabia, the ambitious women that are brimming with ideas, the women that have been oppressed for generations.