Page - 84 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

84 | Milja Radovic www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 73–89 she is entering adolescence. Her mother, who is at the same time faced with a difficult emotional situation in her marriage, is initially opposed to her daughter’s having a bicycle, and Wadjda therefore decides to enter a Qur’an-reading competition to raise the money she needs to buy a bicycle (fig.2). She is faced with a strict teacher whose hypocrisy she rejects. At the same time her mother realises that her husband, Wadjda’s father, will have to marry another woman who will give him an heir because Wadjda, as a girl, does not count on the family tree, which is symbolically displayed in their living room. When her husband marries an- other woman, Wadjda’s mother embraces her daughter’s “rebellious” and authentic spirit and buys her a bicycle (fig. 3). Al-Mansour chooses a subtle way to reveal the oppression and restrictions that women face on a daily basis, from an early age, because of their gender. The film shows the world from the perspective of a child, a young girl, as a world that although restricted is full of changes and possibilities, which allows al-Mansour to bring more energy to the subject at hand than would be contained in a simple statement about oppressed women. Looking out from within, from the local perspective, and through the eyes of a young girl, she provides a picture of a world that is yet to come. Behind the main story about a child who wants a bicycle, the film shows “non-kind actions as a result of society’s pressure”, such as the story of Wadjda’s mother, whose relation- ship with her husband is distorted because “the pressure and the culture itself does not allow that kind of love to grow … Because it allows polygamy, for example”,60 60 Lapin 2013. Fig 2: After winning the competition, Wadjda announces her plans to buy a bike. She gets told of and the prize money is withheld (WADJDA, Haifaa al-Mansour, SA/D 2013)