People in Saudi Arabia’s capital went to the movies for the first time in thirty years. Islamic clerics shut down the movie theaters, considering them decadent and un-Islamic, but King Abdullah has just opened them as part of his modernizing reforms. OK, women were not allowed, but still. . . .
The movie the men and children were finally allowed to see was a Saudi-made comedy entitled
Menahi, described like this in a trade press release as it was being made:
The $2 million pic, helmed by Ayman Makram, is the first bigscreen incarnation of popular Saudi thesp Fayez Al-Maliki’s TV persona Menahi, a naive, humble Saudi farmer who often finds himself involved in comic escapades beyond his control.
Pic will center on Menahi getting involved in a get-rich-quick scheme and traveling from his tribal homeland in the conservative kingdom to the booming metropolis of Dubai. Once there, he finds himself unwittingly embraced, a la Peter Sellers in “Being There,” as a financial guru.
This sounds like an innocent, enjoyable flick. Saudis do have TV and they watch DVDs, so they are already getting corrupted by Hollywood if that’s the issue. What was forbidden was the communal social experience of watching a film in a theater with other people.
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