FILM REVIEW: WADJDA

Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) in Wadjda.

Wheels on fire

By Miranda Inganni

Wadjda is the story of a spunky, charming, strong-minded, feisty 10-year-old girl, Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), who dreams of beating her best friend in a bicycle race. In many countries this would be a simple goal, but for the theocratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the obstacles she encounters while trying to fulfill this dream are manifold.

To begin with, Wadjda’s best friend, Abdullah (Abdullrahman Algohani), is a boy, and girl's ought naught associate with boys in this misogynistic country. Secondly, Wadjda’s mother (exceptionally acted by Reem Abdullah) refuses to buy the bike for her, as it is extremely frowned upon in Saudi Arabia for women and girls to ride bicycles. But neither of these impediments stops Wadjda. To raise money so she can buy the bike herself, the determined entrepreneur decides to sell contraband -- homemade mixed tapes and soccer-team-colored braided bracelets. Such decadence!

When that scheme fails Wadjda signs up for her school’s Koran-recitation contest. Far more difficult than selling bracelets, Wadjda begins the arduous process of not only memorizing the Koran, but also learning how to recite it properly.

Meanwhile her mother is preoccupied trying to convince her husband, who is Wadjda's father, not to take a second wife.

Wadjda is the first feature-length film by a female director in Saudi Arabia (one of the most oppressive countries in the world). Per Saudi law, writer-director Haifaa Al-Mansour was not allowed to be in public with male crewmembers, which meant extra challenges, such as she often had to film from the back of a van, monitoring remotely. This meant she needed the actors  to rehearse extensively since she could not direct directly. This does pay off as performances she elicits from her actors, especially those of first-timer Mohammed and Abdullah are phenomenal.

Without ever outright criticizing Saudi law or Islam, the film subtly but decisively addresses female suppression, which Wadjda in her “Tween” stage is beginning to experience all around her. Al-Mansour handles this aspect of the story (and her culture) delicately and strategically. All the signs of oppression are there, but as Wadjda is the focus of the movie, she is, for now, content with the dream of beating her friend at a bike race.

DVD REVIEW: THE TAQWACORES

Yusef (Bobby Naderi) and Jehangir (Dominic Rains) in The Taqwacores.

Rock the Casbah

By Don Simpson

For a brief period of time, during high school, my love for punk rock and my Christian upbringing were brought together with Christian punk. From the moment I discovered the Christian punk movement, it seemed like a rocking contradiction in terms. There was little or no common ground between the two cultures, and in my ears it just sounded like the Christians were co-opting the punk subculture in order to become hip. It was not long before I went back to happily listening to the Dead Kennedys, leaving Christian music behind.

Before Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel The Taqwacores was published in 2004, there was not much of a Muslim punk scene in the United States; but soon thereafter, a Muslim punk scene began to grow. Eyad Zahra’s film, The Taqwacores, is adapted from Knight’s subculture defining novel. In it we follow a Pakistani Muslim named Yusef (Bobby Naderi) as he moves into a group house filled with young Muslim punks including: Umar (Nav Mann), a straightedge Sunni; skateboarder, Amazing Ayyub (Volkan Eryaman); pink-mohawked guitarist, Jehangir (Dominic Rains); Rabeya (Noureen Dewulf), a riot grrl who wears a patched burqa; and a flamboyantly gay Muslim, Muzzamil (Tony Yalda). Some of them drink or take drugs, others tear pages out of the Koran if they disagree with the doctrine, and they all listen to punk rock.

Yusef’s new “unorthodox” housemates immerse him into the Taqwacore scene. Their living room evolves into a mosque during the day and a punk club at night. Eventually their west coast comrades come to party with them and all hell breaks loose.

Like his Taqwacore cohorts, Yusef begins to challenge his own faith and thus The Taqwacores is about the discovery of oneself within the confines of religion and traditions. Muslims say that Taqwacores are not really Muslims, and the punks say that Taqwacores are not really punks. And that brings me full circle to where I began. Taqwacores see their movement as a mishmashing of disenfranchised subcultures, but is it truly possible to identify yourself as both punk and Muslim (or Christian)?

Different people have different definitions of punk, just as different Muslims (or Christians) have different perspectives on what it means to be Muslim (or Christian). As far as I can surmise from The Taqwacores, though, these young Muslims seem to have adopted a clichéd notion of punk. There is much more to punk than hairstyles, clothing and music — and that is really all these Taqwacore kids seem to have. It probably does not help matters that Zahra portrays all of his characters as one-dimensional caricatures of specific “types” of people in the Taqwacore subculture, and they all wear their personality traits on their sleeves. So I am not saying that Taqwacore is not punk rock; I am saying that Zahra’s cinematic representation of Taqwacore is not punk rock.

The Taqwacores is currently available on DVD. For more information go to Strand Releasing: www.strandreleasing.com