The Kingdom

October 24, 2007 at 11:32 am · Filed under Pop Culture

Like most of the “compound society” that lived in Riyadh, our lives were heavily influenced by the Riyadh 2003 compound bombings, especially as most of the victims were, typically, Palestinian. That’s why when I heard about ‘The Kingdom’, Hollywood’s attempt at portraying the events, I was curious, and so yesterday, we went to Century to check out the movie. Honestly– the movie wasn’t a quarter as bad as I expected it to be.

The negatives:
1. It was your stereotypical example of Hollywood’s love of blowing up cars, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
2. Too many gunning scenes in a country that is relatively free of such things- Saudi Arabia was portrayed as a country with a raging civil war.
3. America saves the day (when in reality, America can’t even save itself!).
4. The incident was too Americanized, when most of the people affected were not American. Even most of the “Americans” involved were really Palestinians with American nationalities.
5. They showed too many supposedly Saudi women with their faces uncovered, even is “infamous neigborhoods” and I assure you that that would NEVER happen.

The positives:
1. They did too damn good job at being unbiased in portraying Arabs and Muslims- perhaps a little too unbiased.
2. They were right on spot with the scenes of Saudi Arabia, showing both its regular neighborhoods, and the few highrise skyscraper streets.
3. They had some historical facts about the region that made it possible to analyze for those interested.
4. They analyzed the cycle of violence in a very interesting way.
5. The Arab actors did excellent jobs.




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  • http://www.za3tar.net za3tar

    #Beginning Brain Dump:#

    Hollywood’s portrayal of Arabs and Muslims as heavily armed men and veiled women is really aggravating. Unfortunately many people form their opinion on Arabs based on these motion pictures (i guess likewise these motion pictures influenced our opinion on Russians, Chinese, and others).

    It is interesting (and sometimes frustrating) how TV allows a few people to form the identity of uncountable masses in the minds of millions without any questioning or second guessing.

    I guess some shows are waking up with a dash of moral responsibility (like Sleeper Cell, and FX’s 30 days). Can user-generated content and the new media correct this err ? … i don’t know …. but it certainly helps.

    #End of Brain Dump.#

  • Partner FL

    It is worth mentioning that the two main Arab characters officers Fares and Haitham are Palestinian actors Ashraf Barhom and Ali Suleiman who starred in the Academy award nominee “Paradise now”.

    On a quasi-separate note Wikipedia identifies Barhom as a Christian Israeli Arab actor

  • http://www.thescatterload.com Hamzeh N.

    I have to say I was very turned off about the idea of watching this movie after reading this review of it:

    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ02Ak03.html

  • http://www.omernos.com/blog omar

    I left the movie after the “Allahu Akbar”, smashity smash scene
    I couldn’t bare to watch another movie with glorified American warriors and Arab turban-heads. I was seriously mad, and I simply walked out the theatre.

    If anyone has a little sense of belonging, they would see that the movie is just not right. I’m so agitated with the Arab actors who agreed to portray the usual roles in the movie setting up groups on facebook waiting for praise – unfortunately it’s not what they got, everybody wasn’t so jolly happy about it.

    What irritates me the most is that how much this would still feed the stereotype in the non-Arabs, non-Muslims heads. Sorry I talked about it too much, I’m just not so happy with the movie…

    omar

  • Tawwell balak

    Omar,
    How can you judge the movie if you have not finished it?
    Not to defend the film or any otherridiculous Hollywood production, but the film actually earned some criticism from some right-wing Americans for being pro-Muslim.

    Ya3ni ya zalameh sortt dafe3 dafe3…swallow the pill, so at least your point makes sense and is based on your observations, not expectations.

  • http://blog-of-d.blogspot.com Dandoon

    This is definitely a movie that a person SHOULD not miss (I gotta catch up on it)
    I read some reviews about how the movie is portraying a good perspective both sides of society is Saudi, progressive Saudis and the extremists. And how the government is not doing a good job fighting the root of the problem of terrorism in Saudi (mostly counter back attacks).
    BUT I don’t get why would anyone be offended by the movie, it was not intended to be educational about the Arab culture!
    Arabs being portrayed in action and thrillers movie is one more influence of the global political affairs…just like not all Italians are mafia members, and not all Russians are terrorists…not all Arabs are raging tribe members in Tubs and rifles
    After all, WHATEVER

  • http://www.omernos.com/blog omar

    Tawwell Balak,
    you do have a VERY valid point – I felt like I shouldn’t be judging it because I left too early but the pill was very bitter to swallow in! hehe.

    The thing that made me go on with such criticism is that my friends who stayed in the theatre hated it as well and told me a couple of details. So it didn’t make me feel like I missed the part where they justified what they’ve put right in the beginning of the movie.

  • http://blog.haniobaid.com Hani Obaid

    I’m with Omar, I didn’t want to go after I found out what the movie was about. Besides the director (Peter Berg) is jewish, and when asked he said he had a point to make particularily in that most of the hijackers in 911 were Saudi. Yet KSA was considered an ally, and he wanted his son to have a quote “accurate” idea what it was like !

    I’ll leave the rest to you, the people who watched the movie.