Saudi Arabia – Comedy/Drama – Year: 2012 – Running time: 98 mins
Audience feedback: Rating: 
(4.65 / 5 from 23 votes)
- ‘Excellent’: 17 votes
- ‘Very Good’: 5 votes
- ‘Good’: 0 votes
- ‘Satisfactory’: 1 vote
- ‘Poor’: 0 vote
The first feature to be filmed in Saudi Arabia by a woman, Al-Mansour makes forceful points about her country’s gender politics within a story that’s simple and unassuming. Wadjda, a ten-year-old girl in a world dominated by men, wonders if life could be different. Causing great anxiety for her poor mother, she wants money to buy a bicycle, in defiance of tradition, and so enters a Qur’an reading contest at school with a cash prize. A funny, romantic, simple and accessible tale, told with grace, warmth and clarity, but with an implicit, cutting political edge.
Filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour uses the simple story as our entry into a complex culture and a pointed perspective on how women are treated in Saudi society …
Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies online
Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour
Women Without Shadows (2005)
Film notes (Eric Colvin)
Audience feedback
Discussion forum
Further reading:
Sight and Sound (Hannah McGill)
The London Film Review (Paul Risker)
Theatrical trailer: