Some REEL Muslims... [View all]

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(NOTE: this is being posted in the Atheists/Agnostics group. If snark about religions bothers you, maybe you'd better stop reading now.)

Here are some movies I liked about the Middle East, mostly from a Muslim point of view. With some of my usual irrelevant and rambling sidetracks.

Feel free to mention any I missed or any of your own favorites in the genre. I'm always looking for new stuff to watch.

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Wadjda (2012 - Saudi Arabia)

Written and directed by a WOMAN, Haifaa Al-Mansour. In a country where men and women are legally barred from working together...and a country that has NO MOVIE THEATERS, thanks to its idiotic Wahhabi rulers. Over at IMDB, a Saudi woman reviews the movie and mentions that she could only see it at one place - the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh.

The movie was filmed in Riyadh, and some stories say Al-Mansour directed it "from the back of a van."

The basic plot makes it sound like a kid's movie - Wadjda is a 10-yr-old girl determined to get herself a bicycle. Even though her Mom warns her that riding a bike means she'll never be able to have children. And "determined" is an understatement. When it comes to that bike, Wadjda makes Captain Ahab look like a slacker.

But definitely not a kid's movie. In the background, Wadjda's father is about to leave the family and move in with his (younger) "second wife," as he is allowed to do according to his religion.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2258858/?ref_=nv_sr_1

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Cairo 678 (2010 - Egypt)

Fictionalized version of a famous Egyptian legal case - the very first case of sexual harassment allowed in an Egyptian court. The plot follows three very different women living in Cairo, and how they deal with daily sexual harassment.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764141/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

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The Band's Visit (2007 - Israel)

From Egypt, the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra visits Israel. They have a prestigious performance lined up, at a new Arab Cultural Center in the town of Petah Tiqva.

Unfortunately...the Arab language doesn't have a "p" sound and substitutes a "b." So they end up very lost, way out in the Negev Desert, at a tiny fly-blown village...

"Hello. We are looking for the Petah Tiqva Cultural Center."
"This is Beit Hatikva. Cultural CENTER? We don't even have any CULTURE!"

The first of many misunderstandings that everybody just has to work thru, because they're stuck with each other. At least for the night. And since nobody speaks each other's language, they communicate in broken English. (So broken it still needs subtitles.)

As one reviewer said: it's one thing to hate people in the abstract. But another thing to hate a stranger standing in front of you who's lost and hungry.

This is a wonderfully humanistic movie, IMO. And no, not one word is spoken about war.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032856/?ref_=nv_sr_1

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The Yacoubian Building (2006 - Egypt)

Alaa' Al-Aswany's novel caused a huge uproar when published in 2002, because it dealt with the Three Big Taboos in Egypt: politics, sex and religion. When time came to make it a movie, every famous actor in Egypt was clamoring for a part in it.

And no wonder. There was something here to outrage everybody, and it also jumped dead into the Fourth Unmentionable - class. Along with exposing religious leaders and politicians as raging hypocrites.

Characters include:
--Taha, a moderate Muslim who only wants to join the police. He is barred because his father is too low-class: a janitor. After an arrest at a rally and brutalizing by the police he once wanted to join, he ends up a radical fundamentalist.
--His girlfriend Bothayna, whose price of employment includes daily groping by her boss.
--Halem, editor of a prestigious magazine, who is gay.
--Azzam, aspiring politician who takes a second wife in secret. It won't stay secret when she gets pregnant...

ETA - you really should read the book before seeing this movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425321/?ref_=nv_sr_1

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Osama (2003 - Afghanistan)

No, not THAT Osama. The Taliban move into a small Afghan village and immediately ban women from working. The plot focuses on one household containing nothing but women, of three generations. If they can't work, they will literally starve. So their young daughter dresses as a boy and gets work with a sympathetic shop owner - knowing she will be killed if the Taliban finds her out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368913/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

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9th Company (2005 - Russia)

"So I went home from Afghanistan. With medals from a country that no longer existed."

The story of some Russian kids, conscripted into the Red Army in 1988...just in time for the last bloody year of war in Afghanistan. Intense and gory in places, quiet and thoughtful in others. Directed by Fedor Bondarchuk - his father directed the famous 9,000-hour version of War and Peace in 1956.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417397/?ref_=nv_sr_1

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Argh! That's way more than enough for now, though I do have some others...