Wadjda is a peek behind the black veils of Saudi Arabian women and girls. If its eponymous and irreverent hero is a surprise, she is also irresistible. Ten-year-old Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) listens to rock music, wins videogames against her dad, and dismisses anything that smacks of convention, especially the standards of respectability for Saudi girls. Wadjda desperately wants a bicycle in a country where girls, if they ride them at all, do so in their backyards. Writer-director Haifaa Al Mansour’s debut feature, the first by a Saudi woman, was shot on location in a kingdom where movie theatres have remained shuttered since the mid-1980s.
ArtsIslamica 