Al-murashahat al-muthalia

This is another impressive film by the Director of 'wadja' again focusing on the female experience in modern Saudi Arabia, specifically, a doctor who decides to run for political office in her local town. It's really absorbing and interesting, and beautifully done all round with super performances. Cultural insights abound here, as well as understated criticisms of what's portrayed as a highly misogynistic society, but the film also features some great music. Ignore the negative reviews, Saudi's shouldn't flinch.....this deserves a wide audience.

Better to perform than conform! I'm really fond of Al-Mansour's smooth style of protest drama portraying bold and profound female protagonists who raise a voice against the calloused cultural concerns in Saudi Arabia to spark a debate upon the strict patriarchal mindset. She paves an undulating yet bright path of possibility leading toward tolerance and acceptance by deconstructing sexist tradition of theocracy.

First of all I must say that to a certain extent this movie gives you an interesting look at a different part of the world, how people live there and what kind of problems they need to face. But sadly this is where the positive aspects end in my opinion.

This movie is about Maryam, a young Saudi-Arabian doctor who wants to run for the office in the local city elections but she has to struggle with a lot while the community does not accept her as their town's first female candidate. So we can see how women in different parts of the world live and with what kinds of problems they have to deal to be taken seriously in their workspace or the regular life.

Sadly the story itself is pretty boring and predictable. After like 20-30 minutes you can say how this movie ends and the build up for the climax is too long. The movie also couldn't really reach me emotionally due to the actors, because I wasn't able to sympathize with them. And when you finally reach the point where the movie actually gets a little bit exciting, the movie has almost ended. The cinamtography and the score were ok, but nothing great.

In the end I would still say that this is a movie you can definitly watch once, simply to get a different look at the world and maybe you can even enjoy the movie, because I'm sure that this movie can give hope to someone. But sadly this movie didn't work for me.

Haifaa al-Mansour is the greatest director of our generation. this is the second film of Haifaa al-Mansour that I've seen after her first debut film Wadjda which I've watched it back at Istanbul Film Festival. It's also the second Saudi Arabian Film that I've seen so far. Haifaa is one of the emerging director came out from Saudi Arabia. She has the distinctive authenticated voice to express herself and society in Saudi in her films.

The Perfect Candidate is another compelling and moving film about Woman Empowerment in the conservative society. It is well produced film. like how the main protagonist is portrayed as the strong optimistic woman who is resistance, stubborn, won't give up easily regardless of her prejudice patriarchic community in Saudi Arabia. I like the climax of the film. It is not a cliche happy ending but rather a subtle hopeful ending which opens up the discussion about feminism in our society.

I found this film via the Florida Film Festival in 2020 as a feature film listing. I found the film to be both an entertaining film as well from the perspective of today's Saudi Arabian culture in general and issues for Saudi women in particular quite educational. A plus in the movie was the focus on the Saudi musicians and singers who were playing live gigs that have recently been allowed by the government in Saudi Arabia. I found the film well worth my time.