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The Girl Wadjda (Film Review)
This is: the first movie ever to be shot and produced in Saudi Arabia (where since 1975, when King Feisal died, there are no more cinemas). Directed by a woman, Haifa al-Mansur, scripted by her, about a female main character - Wadjda, the girl of the title (and btw, Das Mädchen Wadjda is the German title; since I can't read Arabic, I don't know the Arabic one - the film was co-produced with German money, which is why it got released here) - with most, though not all, of the other characters women, set in the present, and very much about what it's like to be a girl in Saudi Arabia.
Given all this, it could have crashed down under the weight of expectations, of worthiness, of good intentions and/or caution. Instead, it's an amazing miracle of breeziness, wit and charm while simultanously painting a devastating picture, all the more searing because it's not sledgehammery. Things you won't find here, for example, and which I bet would have been there in 9 out of 10 cases if the film had been shot and scripted from the outside, are stonings, or men beating up their wives, or rapes. Not in this film. Instead, you have far more every day methods of the patriarchy exerting control everywhere. When Wadjda's mother goes to work, she has to wait for a type of carpool that picks up other women as well. (Because, and the film expects you to figure this out on your own instead of giving its characters "as you know, Bob" type of dialogue, adult women aren't allowed to be on the road on their own, let alone drive.) When the girls at Wadjda's school notice there are (male) construction workers on a roof of a nearby building, from which they're able to see the school, they're cautioned by their teachers not to make any more noise ("our voices are supposed to be intimate") and go inside. There is a family tree in the apartment where Wadjda and her mother live, showing her father's family. Or rather, only the male members of it. Wadjda herself, as she notices, does not exist on it. And of course, Wadjda's dream, which kicks the plot in motion, the dream of having a bike so she can race with her dearest frenemy Abdullah (who, as a boy, of course has a bike of his own) has so many obstacles not because her parents can't afford a bike, but because Wadjda is a girl and thus shouldn't ride one at all.
Perhaps the best way to explain the allure of the film is that it does what's always effective if done well, which so rarely happen: use a plot structure from one genre in a surrounding your audience is completely unfamiliar with and doesn't associate with it at all. The mixture and clashing of genres. Because one level, this is a classical children's/Young Adult tale: Wadjda's age isn't specified, but she's still young enough to walk on her own without male supervision, she has her impossible dream early on in the best Disney tradition, and in the course of the film works hard and overcomes various obstacles in order to achieve it. One of her key relationships is of course with another child: Abdullah and she pick on each other and argue but are also very fond of each other and comfort each other; if your heart breaks a little for them it's not because of what happens within the film but because of the external knowledge that just in a few years later, their easy bickering buddies comradery will become impossible due to their respective gender and status in the world they're living in. The cares and troubles of the adult world are seen through her filter; so she and the audience figure out that the reason why her mother becomes increasingly snappish and agitated is that her mother is afraid Wadjda's father will take a second wife (since she didn't give him any sons), but you don't get scenes with Wadjda's father and mother out of Wadjda's earshot. The girls at Wadjda's school gossip whether or not the burglar who supposedly broke in to the headmistress' home was really a burglar or a secret lover, but again, we only know what they know, and it's not that much of interest to Wadjda, who is trying to figure out how to finance buying a bike (since her parents won't give her one). She's an enterprising bargainer if there ever was one and great at making money (also at maths), but while this makes for several funny scenes it also becomes clear to her she'll never get enough money with small scale sales and making the older girls pay her for carrying messages. So when there's a Qu'ran recitation competition which does offer the required money (and more) as a prize, Wadjda, despite a stormy relationship with her headmistress (the primary enforcer of order in this film and thus in a way the main antagonist), decides to take part in it. (In a Western movie, she'd participate in a play or dance competition or would build her own invention or something like that.)
About those Qu'ran recitations: these are the only parts of the film that weren't dubbed and for a reason, because the melody is as important as the content. Again, the film avoids clichés; the religious teacher who trains the girls isn't an evil fanatic, but kind and more patient than the headmistress who is a great study of someone who has a little power of her own in a system where most women have none, and who uses it to reinforce that system. As mentioned, most of the characters in the film are women: Wadjda's mother and her headmistress are the most promiment ones, but there is also her mother's best friend Leila (who works at the hospital where, shock horror, she has male co workers, but being both cheerful and fat, she declares her husband is not jealous anymore), the religious teacher, and several of the girls at school, two of which, the ones with the nail polish (which Wadjda pilfers on one occasion; another cliché the film avoids is making Wadjda a tomboy because of the way she enjoys cheeking everyone and her determination re: bike; this is not mutually exclusive with liking nail polish and love songs), are in a way both a warning and foreshadowing what could happen. Incidentally, I have no idea whether Haifa al-Mansur used lay people or actresses for the school girls, but I'm happy to report that unlike many a Western tv show, where the impression you get is that schools are mysteriously full of girls who look like they could pose in a magazine, the girls here are of all physical types, thin, heavy, avarage, small, tall, the lot.
Both the girls and the women wear their chadors only to go out and underneath jeans or dresses like their non-Saudi Arabian counterparts, which is visually helpful since it means you have no trouble identifying the characters. The director uses clothing imagery throughout the film; we see the shoes of the schoolgirls first and Wadjda's rebelliousness, enterprising nature is indicated by the fact she wears multicoloured trainers. The red dress her mother intends to buy in order to win her husband back from the prospect of a second wife is mirrored with all the safran and curry flavoured food in the kitchen when mother and daughter cook. Wadjda's black dress for going out makes her always a striking contrast to Adbullah's white tunic whenever the two of them meet. The school is a mixture of yellow and green (the colour of Islam), whereas the forbidden nail polish is blue. And the final image of the film is just perfect. (No, I won't tell you how it ends.) Acting wise, both young and adult actors are giving good performances, and I really hope to see the girl playing Wadjda later in future films. I most definitely will see more of the director, Haifa al-Mansur.
If you're interested: The film's website, which has a trailer, so even if you don't know any German you get get an impression of what it looks like.
Given all this, it could have crashed down under the weight of expectations, of worthiness, of good intentions and/or caution. Instead, it's an amazing miracle of breeziness, wit and charm while simultanously painting a devastating picture, all the more searing because it's not sledgehammery. Things you won't find here, for example, and which I bet would have been there in 9 out of 10 cases if the film had been shot and scripted from the outside, are stonings, or men beating up their wives, or rapes. Not in this film. Instead, you have far more every day methods of the patriarchy exerting control everywhere. When Wadjda's mother goes to work, she has to wait for a type of carpool that picks up other women as well. (Because, and the film expects you to figure this out on your own instead of giving its characters "as you know, Bob" type of dialogue, adult women aren't allowed to be on the road on their own, let alone drive.) When the girls at Wadjda's school notice there are (male) construction workers on a roof of a nearby building, from which they're able to see the school, they're cautioned by their teachers not to make any more noise ("our voices are supposed to be intimate") and go inside. There is a family tree in the apartment where Wadjda and her mother live, showing her father's family. Or rather, only the male members of it. Wadjda herself, as she notices, does not exist on it. And of course, Wadjda's dream, which kicks the plot in motion, the dream of having a bike so she can race with her dearest frenemy Abdullah (who, as a boy, of course has a bike of his own) has so many obstacles not because her parents can't afford a bike, but because Wadjda is a girl and thus shouldn't ride one at all.
Perhaps the best way to explain the allure of the film is that it does what's always effective if done well, which so rarely happen: use a plot structure from one genre in a surrounding your audience is completely unfamiliar with and doesn't associate with it at all. The mixture and clashing of genres. Because one level, this is a classical children's/Young Adult tale: Wadjda's age isn't specified, but she's still young enough to walk on her own without male supervision, she has her impossible dream early on in the best Disney tradition, and in the course of the film works hard and overcomes various obstacles in order to achieve it. One of her key relationships is of course with another child: Abdullah and she pick on each other and argue but are also very fond of each other and comfort each other; if your heart breaks a little for them it's not because of what happens within the film but because of the external knowledge that just in a few years later, their easy bickering buddies comradery will become impossible due to their respective gender and status in the world they're living in. The cares and troubles of the adult world are seen through her filter; so she and the audience figure out that the reason why her mother becomes increasingly snappish and agitated is that her mother is afraid Wadjda's father will take a second wife (since she didn't give him any sons), but you don't get scenes with Wadjda's father and mother out of Wadjda's earshot. The girls at Wadjda's school gossip whether or not the burglar who supposedly broke in to the headmistress' home was really a burglar or a secret lover, but again, we only know what they know, and it's not that much of interest to Wadjda, who is trying to figure out how to finance buying a bike (since her parents won't give her one). She's an enterprising bargainer if there ever was one and great at making money (also at maths), but while this makes for several funny scenes it also becomes clear to her she'll never get enough money with small scale sales and making the older girls pay her for carrying messages. So when there's a Qu'ran recitation competition which does offer the required money (and more) as a prize, Wadjda, despite a stormy relationship with her headmistress (the primary enforcer of order in this film and thus in a way the main antagonist), decides to take part in it. (In a Western movie, she'd participate in a play or dance competition or would build her own invention or something like that.)
About those Qu'ran recitations: these are the only parts of the film that weren't dubbed and for a reason, because the melody is as important as the content. Again, the film avoids clichés; the religious teacher who trains the girls isn't an evil fanatic, but kind and more patient than the headmistress who is a great study of someone who has a little power of her own in a system where most women have none, and who uses it to reinforce that system. As mentioned, most of the characters in the film are women: Wadjda's mother and her headmistress are the most promiment ones, but there is also her mother's best friend Leila (who works at the hospital where, shock horror, she has male co workers, but being both cheerful and fat, she declares her husband is not jealous anymore), the religious teacher, and several of the girls at school, two of which, the ones with the nail polish (which Wadjda pilfers on one occasion; another cliché the film avoids is making Wadjda a tomboy because of the way she enjoys cheeking everyone and her determination re: bike; this is not mutually exclusive with liking nail polish and love songs), are in a way both a warning and foreshadowing what could happen. Incidentally, I have no idea whether Haifa al-Mansur used lay people or actresses for the school girls, but I'm happy to report that unlike many a Western tv show, where the impression you get is that schools are mysteriously full of girls who look like they could pose in a magazine, the girls here are of all physical types, thin, heavy, avarage, small, tall, the lot.
Both the girls and the women wear their chadors only to go out and underneath jeans or dresses like their non-Saudi Arabian counterparts, which is visually helpful since it means you have no trouble identifying the characters. The director uses clothing imagery throughout the film; we see the shoes of the schoolgirls first and Wadjda's rebelliousness, enterprising nature is indicated by the fact she wears multicoloured trainers. The red dress her mother intends to buy in order to win her husband back from the prospect of a second wife is mirrored with all the safran and curry flavoured food in the kitchen when mother and daughter cook. Wadjda's black dress for going out makes her always a striking contrast to Adbullah's white tunic whenever the two of them meet. The school is a mixture of yellow and green (the colour of Islam), whereas the forbidden nail polish is blue. And the final image of the film is just perfect. (No, I won't tell you how it ends.) Acting wise, both young and adult actors are giving good performances, and I really hope to see the girl playing Wadjda later in future films. I most definitely will see more of the director, Haifa al-Mansur.
If you're interested: The film's website, which has a trailer, so even if you don't know any German you get get an impression of what it looks like.
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