You'd need a heart of stone not to be won over by Wadjda, a rebel yell with a spoonful of sugar and a pungent sense of a Riyadh society split between the home, the madrasa and the shopping mall.
Modest as it may look, this is boundary-pushing cinema in all the best ways, and what a thrill it is to hear those boundaries creak.
80
EmpireDavid Parkinson
EmpireDavid Parkinson
As simple and charming as you could wish for, this is a genuinely pioneering debut from a female Saudi filmmaker and a striking piece of work by any standards.
80
Total Film
Total Film
Al-Mansour carefully dodges easy uplift, but her message of hope to future generations of Saudi women is clear.
80
Time OutKeith Uhlich
Time OutKeith Uhlich
An Arabic-German coproduction, it is a rare movie shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, which has no cinema industry to speak of, and the first feature by a female filmmaker from that country. Forbidden from mixing with the men in her crew, Al-Mansour often directed via walkie-talkie from the back of a van.
This resonant film, detailing struggles in a far-flung place, represents world cinema in the classic sense.
50
Slant MagazineR. Kurt Osenlund
Slant MagazineR. Kurt Osenlund
It doesn't play like reality, but like boilerplate filmic fantasy, and its novel setting and inception struggles seem positioned as a beard--or veil, if you will--to mask its mediocrity.