Wadjda (***1/2)

Purportedly the first feature filmed in Saudi Arabia as well as the first by a female Saudi director (Haifaa Al-Mansour), Wadjda would be an accomplishment even if it sucked. But it doesn’t. Not only that, where you might expect a political drama, it’s kind of a feel-good film. The social commentary is secondary to story-telling.

True, no one will miss the implicit critique of the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia. Watching this, I had the thought that if I were a female in Saudi Arabia, I might want to remain 10 or 11 forever. I would be too young to worry, like Wadjda’s mother does, about having to rely on a male driver to get to a job, about a husband possibly acquiring a second wife. I could go about without a veil covering my face. I could pal around with a boy.

Wadjda is a girl of such an age. She’s not so good in school, but clever outside of it, earning money by selling bracelets to classmates, cadging discounts from a local storekeeper. The Converse sneakers she wears to school and the T-shirt she wears at home (saying, in English, “I’m a Great Catch”) suggest a rebel. But really, she just wants to do her own thing.  Her only two problems are the disapproval of her school’s headmistress and her inability to afford the bike she wants to ride. That she doesn’t know how to ride a bike, and that everyone tells her girls don’t ride them, is less of concern. Meanwhile, a school contest presents a potential solution to both problems.

Some of the particulars of the story, like the strict religiosity of the headmistress, and the need to avoid being seen by men, are particular to the Saudi context, but mean teachers, coveted objects, and conflicts between one’s parents are universal childhood experiences. The combination of these familiar experiences with the novel context is the most striking aspect of the movie, along with its young lead actress. Possessing a wide smile and camera presence, Waad Mohammed gives the most appealing performance by a child since Onata Aprile in What Maisie Knew. The personality she breathes into the character should make this film irresistibly winsome for anyone old enough to be able to read the subtitles.



IMDb link

viewed 10/10/13 7:40 pm, at Ritz 5; posted 10/11/13 and updated 10/12/13

Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (***)

Morgan Spurlock’s follow-up to Super Size Me is a fun voyage around the Middle East, but it’s longer on touchy-feely we-are-the-world vibes than factual information. The whiz-bang video game graphics that dominate the beginning of the documentary are probably a better fit for a movie about visiting McDonald’s that one that’s about visiting regular folks in Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Morocco. Like Michael Moore, Spurlock injects his own story (and his wife’s pregnancy) into the movie, and a bit of comedy, but he’s way less prescriptive, if also less informative. And, not to give away the ending, but he never does find Osama bin Laden.

IMDB link

viewed 4/2/08 (screening at Bridge); reviewed 4/18/08

The Kingdom (**3/4)

Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, and Jason Bateman play a team of FBI agents who travel to Riyadh to investigate a series of bomb blasts that have killed hundreds in an American-controlled zone in the Saudi capital. The opening credits play over a series of chronological film and sound clips that telescope the history of American economic and political interests in the country, which of course are almost solely tied to the presence of oil in the region. But this montage promises more than what the movie delivers, which is an earnest but sometimes-sterile tale that celebrates the derring-do of the FBI, climaxes with a rock-’em sock-’em shootout, and ends with an ironic reminder that shootouts may solve a crime but not resolve the hatred that led to it. Director Peter Berg brings the same earnestness and sense of realism that he did to his previous effort, Friday Night Lights. However, it suffers from the same flaw, a dry approach that makes the characters fairly forgettable, even if the performances are entirely creditable. (Bateman shows the most personality.) Given the tragedy its center, I felt like I should have felt a greater emotional investment in the story.

That action-packed finish will, depending on your taste, strike you as a preposterous gloss on, or a welcome relief from, the quiet detective story of the first 90 minutes. I thought it was both. Berg and screenwriter Matthew Carnahan bring a certain veneer of authenticity to the proceedings. Garner’s character learns about a woman’s place in Saudi culture. The wise Saudi policeman in charge of aiding the FBI men, and even some of the other Saudis, are depicted with more subtlety that you might expect. But still, the basic premise, that four spunky Americans with guns and a copy of The Koran for Dummies will be able to save the day, is never in question.

IMDB link

reviewed 9/30/07