Netflix has been my medicine and my travel guide this summer--as you might guess by the content of my blog posts.
Wadjda ia the first film made by a Saudi woman--an inside look into the culture of women in Saudi Arabia: covered faces in public and waiting weeks for their husbands to return between other wives. In this film, we get to see a girl inside her house listening to music, eating on the floor, and polishing her toenails blue. Everything outside the house is dictated by men.
Wadjda is a spunky little ten-year-old girl who lives with her beautiful mother and wants a bike more than anything. But bikes are strictly for boys. For a girl to even wish for a bike is unthinkable.
One of her classmates brings her wedding pictures to school and is congratulated by the teacher. The girl is about ten; her husband twice her age.
Wadjda's goal is to win the prize money from a Qur'an-reading contest at school. No spoilers here--just this line, as a teaser, from her mother: "I want you to be the happiest person in the world."
I can relate--happiness and having one's own wheels are closely connected!
This film will be a contender at the Oscars, no doubt--it's a beautiful story of bravery in a world in which women's desires are considered trivial and where a girl child is not even worthy to be named on the family tree.
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