WADJDA DEPICTS THE LIFE OF A GIRL IN SAUDI ARABIA
Every society has etiquet prohibitions of various sorts. But the life of a girl growing up in a strict Muslim country is particularly difficult, as portayed in Wadjda, directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, Saudi Arabia’s first female filmmaker. Ten-year-old Wadjda (played by Waad Mohammed) lives with her mother, has a boy playmate, attends a strict Muslim school, and occasionally sees her philandering father. Men give no instructions to her, but her mother (played by Reem Abdullah) and the school principal (played by Ahd) dish out “don’ts” whenever she tries to exhibit some freedom from the restrictions. They involve mandatory wearing of a head scarf, never talking loud enough to be heard by men outside home, avoiding being seen uncovered by men outside, never selling trinkets at school, and nonrepresentation on a family genealogy diagram. Nevertheless, she goes alone into a single proprietor store that sells bicycles and videos, walks down the street where she can be seen by men, and the nearby hospital permits men and women to work together. Her mother, in contrast, relies on a driver to get to work because women are not allowed to drive. Thus, Wadjda knows that the rules are changing and enjoys pushing the envelope to the consternation of her mother and the school principal (who is rumored to have an ongoing sexual affair with someone other than her husband). The plot begins when, holding a snack to be consumed for lunch at school, her young male playmate Abdullah (played by Abdulrahman Al-Gohani) rips off her headscarf while riding his bicycle. Wajdja resolves not only to buy a bike but also to win in a race with the boy, who at the end of the film pledges that he will marry her when they come of age. To buy a bike, she needs the purchase price, so in much of the film she shows entrepreneurial talent as she extracts cash from classmates (for trinkets that she makes) and from men (whom she charges to do simple favors for them). But to ensure that she has substantial riyadh, she enters a contest. The contest is to determine which student best understands the Qu’ran and can best pronounce verses in Arabic singsong. She studies hard, has help from her mother, confesses to the principal that she will change her ways, and of course wins the competition. But when asked what she will do with the cash award, she lets down her guard, saying that she will buy a bike, whereupon the principal instead directs the prize to help Palestinians. But there is a happy ending, and how that comes about is the spoiler that cannot be told. Consistent with the applause from a filmviewing audience on a hot Sunday afternoon in West Los Angeles, the first movie ever filmed entirely in Saudi Arabia has been nominated for best film on human rights of 2013. MH