Page - 83 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

Activist Citizenship, Film and Peacebuilding | 83www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 73–89 Wadjda (Haifaa al-Mansour, SA/D 2013) Wadjda is well known as the first film by the first female director from a country where cinemas are officially banned. In Saudi Arabia women have been segregated and are prohibited from mixing with men, from driving, and from riding bikes. The rules are often regulated by the religious police, who take action against those who violate the laws of the country. Instead of debating the numerous issues related to the position of women in Islam and in Saudi society, director Haifaa al-Mansour chose to concentrate on a simple story about a girl and a bike. For al-Mansour “bicycles represent a lot, such as freedom of movement for one”.58 The bicycle here becomes a symbol of transformation, life, and ultimately freedom, as in Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948).59 The film combines an urbanised cinéma vérité style with the editing conventions of classical Hollywood cinema, which when united with subject matter and socio-political symbolic undertones reveals the real complexity of al-Mansour’s aesthetic. The aesthetic subtly brings together elements of realism and naturalism, with characters represented true to their natural circumstances. Life is depicted with little distortion, yet at the same time al-Mansour subtly focuses on the individual’s social and political role in society, transforming seemingly insignificant elements of society (a bicycle) in order to question wider elements of reality and the human con- dition. This is one of the crucial elements in what I define as activist transformative practice in cinema. Wadjda (fig. 1) is a ten-year-old girl who wants to have a bicycle to compete with her neighbour and friend Abudallah, with whom she is not supposed to play because 58 Harrod 2013. 59 McGill 2013. Fig 1: Wadjda decides to participate in a Qur’an-reading competition so she can buy a bike (WADJDA, Haifaa al-Mansour, SA/D 2013)