Wadjda (2012)

Wadjda, I was quite sceptical about how this film would turn out. I was quite literally stepping into the unknown. The title, the main menu of the DVD, they gave close to nothing away. Before watching this movie, I had no heads up from anyone else, just my dad asking me if I wanted to watch a film because I was bored.

You see, Wadjda has a plot which is quite unclear until near enough a third of the way through the film. It is about a girl who does not care much for school and how she spends a large amount of her time with a boy because of her parents’ collapsing relationship. She is very competitive and yearns to beat her friend at his own game: a bicycle race. Unfortunately for her, being a girl and riding a bicycle is looked down upon from a religious standpoint and she has insufficient funds to buy one, thus she spends the next two thirds of the film trying to find a way to raise 800 riyals- the price of the bike. When an opportunity arises concerning a religious competition in which girls must give the meaning of terms linked to Islam and recite from the Koran itself, it is up to Wadjda (the name of the girl) to begin taking her studies more seriously to earn the coveted first prize- 1,000 riyals.

I fell in love with this film, I found myself rooting for Wadjda subconsciously and I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen- even when my mother had returned from her work I could not face her and say “Hello”. Not every film has me in this state, I was just engrossed by all of it; the developing storyline, the characters, the decisions made which would seem insignificant to us but had major knock on effects in the society Wadjda lived in. Compelling. Luminous. Fantastic. These are just a few words that I would use the describe Wadjda. I was missing out on a truly great film- don’t make the same mistake as me, kick off 2016 watching Wadjda and thank me later.