Modernist Saudi Cinema: A study of four films as reflections of the individual and society

Abstract

The past decade has seen a steady movement of Saudi cinema from marginal to global visibility, signaling broad socio-cultural transformations within the Kingdom. This research analyzes through a modernist critical framework four contemporary Saudi films as key sites of narrative agency, ideological negotiation, and self-representation. Wadjda, Barakah Meets Barakah, The Perfect Candidate, and Scales are analyzed in this study textually and contextually. The study is unique as it goes beyond treating Saudi cinema as a peripheral cultural phenomenon to explore how it treats the constructs of identity, gender, religion, and modernity amid a rapidly shifting political and social landscape. Each film included in this study articulates a distinct strategy of cinematic self-fashioning: Wadjda highlights female resistance through childhood agency, Barakah Meets Barakah examines romantic intimacy under social censure, The Perfect Candidate critiques women's political participation, and Scales explores patriarchal sacrifice and collective memory. The narratology moves from externally imposed stereotypes to internal growth of characters that highlights the conflict of tradition with modernity, visibility with restriction, and global circulation with cultural sovereignty. This study positions Saudi cinema globally and locally, asserting that contemporary Saudi films serve as modernist cultural texts that mirror and reshape social realities. It highlights cinema's dual role as a reflective medium and a transformative force in expressing modernist identity and cultural self-representation.