Wadjda(2012)
dir. Haifaa al-Mansour
A girl, a green bike, and the rules against both.
Where to watch: Rent on Apple TV, AmazonLetterboxd ↗
A ten-year-old girl in Riyadh wants one thing: a green bicycle, so she can race her neighbor, a boy. Girls aren't supposed to ride, so she sets out to earn the money herself, and the only prize big enough is a school Quran recitation contest she has to win by playing the system's own game.
Why it’s here
The punk move is the making of it: Haifaa al-Mansour became the first Saudi woman to direct a feature, and she shot in Riyadh while directing some scenes from inside a van by walkie-talkie because she couldn't publicly work alongside her male crew. The pedagogy is in how it stays small. Instead of an issues film it follows one stubborn kid, so it shows how rules about who gets to ride, run or be seen are enforced in everyday life, by schoolteachers and mothers and neighbors as much as by law. A child can follow it, and an adult can't unsee what it quietly proves about how restriction gets taught.
Where This Film Lives
Read Alongside
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