It would be hard not to like Wadjda, a new film from Saudi Arabia and the first to be directed by a woman in the male-dominated kingdom. A rare cinematic glimpse of a barely known country, the film tells the story of an independent-minded, cheeky young girl, Wadjda, who wants to buy a bike so she can race with her neighbour, Abdullah (who she shouldn’t be playing with).

Some of Saudi’s multiple, choking, all-encompassing controls over women are thereby exposed: the prohibition on women driving or mixing with men; the taboos over laughing or talking in public, or riding bicycles as these might defile virginity. However, the women in Wadjda – and the titular hero especially – are not depicted as wholly passive victims, but rather come across as striving, enterprising and possessing some agency within the constraints imposed upon them.

It has brought Saudi Arabia into the spotlight at a time when there are mixed reports about the country’s emerging social changes, or lack of them. In January, the Saudi monarchy announced that women would for the first time be appointed to the Shura council (the country’s closest thing to a parliament) and soon be given the vote in municipal elections. Last year, Saudi female athletes took part in the Olympics for the first time. Earlier this year, the kingdom lifted a ban on women working on supermarket checkouts, in lingerie stores and on cosmetics counters.    »»» theguardian.com

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