The film is the first selection of the film " Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , which is a breakthrough in Saudi film. The film is a film that showcases Saudi culture, but resonates with audiences beyond borders.
The film's story is unimaginable to audiences outside the home country, and Wadjda's rebellion has a hint of sadness in the eyes of audiences with different cultural backgrounds. At the end of the film, the principal deprives Wadjda of the right to win the prize, and the plot of donating the prize money without authorization is the most sad part of the film. Moral judgment is a feature of patriarchal society, and for the sake of so-called teachings, those in authority can arbitrarily deprive others of their rights without any reason.
The film has a clear intention, and the audience can intuitively understand the status and experience of women in Saudi Arabia, a patriarchal country. The film uses the perspective of a little girl to tell the story of her attempts to resist the shackles of tradition, but she has repeatedly hit a wall. In this country where women's freedom is restricted, it is also women who bind women, the teachers and mothers of little girls. This is even more terrifying.
The film is a film about dreams. The film did not hesitate to show us the helplessness and paradox condensed in the heroine Wadjda. In order to resist, she surrendered first, and her familiarity with religion became her only means of trying to approach freedom. With the spear of the child, the shield of attacking the child, discipline and freedom, surrender and betrayal, in this story that is not tortuous, we have found the field of confrontation. This pair of contradictions also constitutes the entire tension of the film. The city of Riyadh under Haifaa Al-Mansour's lens is a monotonous yellow and black, with sand, dirt walls, rudimentary construction sites and small shops, the uniform faces of men, and the uniform robes and veils of women. In the silent and empty city, Wadjda is like an elf wrapped in a black chrysalis cocoon. At the end of the film, when the principal made a decision to donate Wadjda's prize money to brother countries in the Arab world, Wadjda shed tears, which was the director's criticism and the edge of the film.
