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WADJDA (ARABIC, ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Watching this remarkable film by Saudi director Haifaa al-Mansour (first full- length movie filmed in Saudi Arabia) realizing we are almost fourteen years into the twenty-first century and that millions of women live in restricted, reduced environments: individuality denied, erased, censored by scripted clothing; unable to vote, drive or control their finances; divorced by simple sentences; birthing vessels, castoff when male progeny is not fulfilled.

“Wadjda” is an effervescent ten-year-old girl; stubbornly refuses to be categorized, listens to Western music, wears tennis shoes, paints her toe nails blue; flirting, skirting the boundaries of traditional family, Islam, choking confines of her all-girls madrassa, in a suburb of Riyadh; she yearns for a bicycle in order to race the “boy next door”; she is a spunky entrepreneur, shrewdly outwitting her classmates, teachers and overwhelming, challenging obstacles . Waad Mohammed’s immaculate performance, illuminating spirit gift “Wadjda” a legitimacy worthy of the highest accolades.

Without bludgeoning sentimentality al-Mansour gently, poignantly addresses the suffocating restraints, dearth of choices, women in an Islamic milieu must adapt to, or circumvent; Wadjda’s mother (magnificently lovely, Reem Abdullah) lacerated by tradition; unarmed, fighting for her beloved husband, pulsating power lies in her integrity; her formidable love for her daughter, cemented, entrenched, is her unwavering, chiseled core of verisimilitude.

The film’s beauty and wisdom lie in its defining polarization: inside the home, universality reigns: cooking, watching television, dancing in blue jeans to gyrating scores of ubiquitous contemporary composers, happiness; versus a thirsty, withered, enervated landscape, shrouded specters running to their ordained destinations; shackled psychologically, fated anonymity. Oh, but Wadjda, the eternal spring, gushing with certainty, lends luminosity and hope to these tethered souls.

FIVE STARS!!!!!

For Now………Peneflix

Watching this remarkable film by Saudi director Haifaa al-Mansour (first full- length movie filmed in Saudi Arabia) realizing we are almost fourteen years into the twenty-first century and that millions of women live in restricted, reduced environments: individuality denied, erased, censored by scripted clothing; unable to vote, drive or control their finances; divorced by simple …

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User Rating: 1.38 ( 4 votes)
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8 comments

  1. Love your new look! Love the improvements! You just keep getting better! Wadjda has been on my list. Have to wait until it works its way to Atlanta. Thanks for all your great and insightful reviews. Keep them coming!

  2. Fabulous format and illustrations! Congratulations, Peneflix!
    Looking forward to seeing WADJA
    L

  3. I hope this film wins for best foreign film. It was groundbreaking. So glad we finally got to see it. It has a very limited showing. (sad)

  4. Hello! I’d like to watch the film with arabic subtitles, is there any chance that you’ve got them?

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