People have celebrated the inclusion of Saudi short films on Netflix, viewing it as a new step in the Saudi film industry, especially that Telfaz 11 is considered to have become a pioneering Saudi institution in the field since its launch on YouTube. However, we should be careful not to be excessive in our celebration, but to also focus on accelerating the creative and critical process at the same time.
The series included six short films: Wasati (Ali Al-Kalthami), Is Sumyati Going to Hell? (Meshal Aljaser), Predicament in Sight (Faris Godus), The Rat (Faisal Alamer), 27th of Shaban (Mohamed Al-Salman), and finally Curtain (Mohammed Al-Salman).
It is a positive and welcome development for Saudi cinema to distinguish itself from Hollywood, creating a unique and special identity for itself, even as Saudi and global audiences continue to engage with the popular American cinema culture. Meaning that, we can state that there is Saudi cinematography, and we can distinguish it even if the film does not contain the Saudi dress or dialect.
It is also noticeable that the direction in all of Telfaz 11’s productions focuses on memory. This is evident in Wasati, for example, where the plot is based on a famous and true story that Saudi society remembers, but it is rewritten through the angle of a marginal character who represents the fictional side of the movie in a comedic manner. There are many examples of the presence of what can be classified as a collective memory or a shared culture in this series, such as using Al-Zubairi’s sandals as a poster for the film, the family gathering to watch the famous show Takeshi’s Castle in the first scene of Is Sumyati Going to Hell, Spacetoon childhood songs in the same film, the old radio and cassette tapes of Mohammed Abdu and the old-fashioned soda drinks in Predicament in Sight, in addition to the old Nokia devices and their primitive ring tones on 27th of Shaban.
The other pivotal point of these films is the criticism of a social phenomenon. In my view, this traces back to the famous Saudi series Tash Ma Tash, which is considered a phenomenon of Saudi television that is difficult to beat. The series also represents a memory and a visual heritage which serves as an appealing foundation for other filmmakers to build on, as it played a role in shaping the Saudi audience’s movie tastes and writing texts based on it makes the cinematic work more acceptable. These films dealt with some classic issues such as the criticism of religious extremism and its excesses in drama and theatre, the mistreatment of servants, the strict social rules imposed on men and women to conform, and finally the harassment to which female Saudi nurses are exposed to by the elderly. These two pivotal points confirm that filmmaking is influenced by the nature of the society in which it is produced, and since we are collectivist societies, it is natural for these characteristics to form structures for Saudi businesses.
However, one of these films appeared completely different from the rest and was not based on any of the above, which is The Rat by Faisal Alamer.
In this film, there is nothing that can be linked to the past/memory at all as the events and details seem modern. The Rat, the shortest film in the series, does not proceed according to the plot, rather, there are several themes that appear in the film’s frames. We as an audience look at these frames in search of the themes and link them together to form consistent meanings throughout the film. The film style seems avant-garde or experimental in Saudi cinema.
Let us look at these frames and try to understand the symbolism and hidden messages in the film.
The film begins with a literary intertextuality with one of the modern literary classics through the opening sentence: “This is the story of the man who became a rat.” This promptly reminds us of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, which begins with the transformation of the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, into a huge insect. This disavowal frames the limits of our expectations from the film and its themes, which is the patriarchal authority always associated with Kafka’s biography, and his criticism of bureaucracy in his novels.
Fear constitutes the major theme of the film that underlies the drivers of this theme, which is the submission to social authorities, portrayed in the film as patriarchy and the functional and bureaucratic institution’s authority. The first frame of the film appears, confirming this theme and even foretelling the end of the film, via the old television with its black-and-white tones showing the phrase “Fear Wins” in the corner of the screen.
We, then, realize the first signs of patriarchal authority when we see the film’s protagonist, Fahad (Ziyad Alamari), sleeping in Adam’s position in the famous painting “The Creation of Adam” by the Italian artist Michelangelo, which depicts God extending His hand to Adam. Nevertheless, Fahad sleeps alone without the presence of God or father, though traces of his father’s presence on the bed seem evident through the wrinkles on the bed and pillow. This gives the impression of the absence of the father, perhaps due to his death, but this presence may be represented with bad memories or emotional traces within Fahad. There is a lot of similarity between this frame and Michelangelo’s painting, including the way Fahad sleeps, pointing with his index finger, and even the colors: the green blanket and its contrast with the red blanket of the non-present father. We then hear the toilet flushing and Fahad’s hand muscle spasms while he is asleep nervously, indicating his father’s previous effects on him despite his absence.
In the next shot, we see Fahad screaming angrily under water, which is a reference to a famous psychological rule: frustration breeds hatred. Up until this moment in the film, we can sense that Fahad is suffering from severe depression, and his father plays a key role in it. This may be due to his absence and betrayal of Fahad, or it may be due to memories of mistreatment. New information emerges that adds a lot to these symbolisms following Fahad’s bath, when he removed the bathtub curtain, the presence of an old man with a large beard in the bathtub with him was revealed. The old man resembles the character of God in Michelangelo’s painting, referring to the same person, whom we did not see, sleeping on the bed next to Fahad. However, until this moment, it seems like Fahad does not see him, as if the existence of this character is in his mind and memories. Rather, even what we heard, and thought was soundtrack music appears to be music played by this character, one that only Fahad hears. Afterwards, we become certain that this character is his father when we see an old picture of young Fahad next to a person covering his face with an Ace card. The card falls when Fahad shouts in extreme frustration, “I didn’t do anything!” only to reveal the face of his father.
The feeling of fear and frustration breeds another feeling; being an overpowered human being. This fact leads Fahad to confuse himself with the rat, in a scene in which Fahad looks through the doorway and hears people trying to kill a rat, as if he were the target, as if he and the rat were one and the same.
The film moves on to address the second element and the other theme of fear and frustration, which is working under the burden of bureaucracy that makes the individual a small cog like many others under the weight of greedy capitalism, another theme of Kafka’s novels. In its subsequent scenes, the film indicates the need to transform individuals into similar selves to make the capitalist economic process successful. Therefore, Fahad replaced his red shemagh with his white ghutrah (headdresses for men), then shaved his mustache to look like the rest of the employees, who appear doing absurd work in a surreal, artistic and satirical scene.
Later, the ingenuity of the director Faisal Alamer shows in the cinematic scene when he displays the transformation of the employees, those symbolized above as cogs, in which they work as if they are mechanical, lifeless humans. This scene appears remarkably similar to what critics’ readings of Kafka’s novels portray when they address this idea.
Fahad works late as a worthless employee, but at this moment in the film he realizes his fear and self-loathing when he sees the old man, as it became a tangible reality after he was an invisible entity in Fahad’s mind. Consequently, Fahad starts a fight with the old man, that ends with the latter’s death. Fahad then walks to the street and falls in a hole when gum gets stuck in his shoe, which ironically the old man had thrown at the beginning of the film. Fahad dies in a manner like the death of the rat at the beginning of the film. Another young man approaches and looks at the dead Fahad next to the old man who represents the parental authority of the other person. This scene indicates that Fahad’s victory seems insufficient. It is not enough for the individual to overcome his fear alone in a society governed by these two authorities. Victory is greater than just defeating fear, rather, it is a departure from a major social system from which separation would be a suicidal act.
In the last scene, Faisal Alamer brings this circular narrative to a dazzling close, proving in the end what we saw on television at the beginning of the film, that no matter what Fahad does, fear always wins. In the final shot, we see how the old man looks from above at the dead Fahad, just as Fahd looked from above at the dead rat at the beginning of the film. In both cases, we see the rat and Fahad inside a circle that refers, first, to this endless cycle, and second, to the circularity of the narrative.
The Rat, albeit seen as deeply rooted in symbolism, I see it as a serious and successful attempt to present avant-garde cinema that transcends traditional cinematography and is completely independent from the authority of mass and populist cinema that is invading the art and literature field around the world.
T1632
