Is it fair to criticize this movie? Not only is it the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, by the first female Saudi director, and not only does it directly confront the travails that women face in a Sharia society, but it's also...quite good. There's no one I wouldn't recommend this movie to.
However, at the risk of sounding incredibly heartless, there is something odd that's been bothering me about Wadjda, and that is that Wadjda is clearly intended for a Western audience. Certainly, the movie is enriched in Saudi culture, with all kinds of fascinating details and insights that lift the movie well above it's admittedly cookie-cutter plot. (One absurd joke comes when the main character skins her knee after falling from her bike and cries out "I'm bleeding!" Her mother with horror immediately assumes that her virginity has been compromised.) In fact, Wadjda goes out of its way to point out all of the things about Saudi society that Westerners find so bizarre, and certainly there's no question in the director's mind that her audience will immediately identify with the scrappy and resourceful girl at the heart of the movie, no matter how much she pushes against authority. One of the oddest things about Wadjda is that as transgressive as it is (as a woman, the director had to control outdoor scenes while hidden from sight in a van), the movie looks and feels like it could have been made in Europe with a resourceful set designer.
P.S. The classic movie about kids and bikes is the italian Bicycle Thieves from 1948, which the director claims as an influence. But I think the parallels are even more striking with 2011's The Kid with a Bike, also about childhood transgression.
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I read the mother's comment when Wadjda skinned her knee quite differently. I didn't think she seriously believed that Wadjda and the neighbor kid had done anything sexual. Instead, it was more of a caustic joke meant to embarrass her daughter and call her out.
ReplyDeleteWadjda: "I'm bleeding!"
Mom: "Well what the hell do you expect to happen when you do what you aren't supposed to/What do you think people will think of you?"
It also reminded me of "Whale Rider" more than anything else.
Oh, I don't think there was anything sexual about the comment either.
DeleteRather, the joke (which is actually quite macabre) was that the mother was worried that her daughter had inadvertently damaged her private parts, making her appear to be a non-virgin to any potential suitor who wanted to "test" her. An exam which is extremely common, by the way.