Keef Alhal?

Keef alhal?

Means "How are you?" in arabic and also the title of that movie that was released as the first saudi movie.The phrase is also used sometimes when try and tell someone that they've been day-dreaming!
I posted the link to Google Video that shows you the movie last night and promissed that i would give my opinion of it later .. well i guess it's later now .. so here it is.
First of all many thanks for all of those who contributed to this production for there efforts and taking all the comments that I'm sure started shooting at them from every which way. The reason I thank them is because they officially broke the barrier that was blocking the flow of some saudi talents. Congratulations and thank you again.
The other thing I liked about this productioin is the fact that it busted the myth of the saudi society being a homogenous religion oreinted one. It showed that there is a diversity in the society, which is a thing I really like, people are different and they can have different believes and should be able to live in peace and harmony if they respect each other. So thanks alot again.

Now a bit of Criticism, First this is not truely the first Saudi Film. There was an Anime called "الحب الحقيقي' or "The true Love" which was an immature attempt to produce something. Although it was rather rude and showed one of the dark sides of our society I still enjoyed it as everyone else did. Another attemp was "ربي ارجعون " which I can't come up with a proper translation for in english but i guess for those who what to look it up more you can try "Rabi Irgi3oon" which is basiclly retyping it in the famous cyber latin arabic script, I didn't actually see that movie ... so I can't comment on it but I can tell you there is such a thing. So Keef alhal was not the first movie but it was the first official one so I'll give it a plus for that.

The Movie, well while watching it i didn't feel like it was a movie .. felt more like a long episode of an gulf drama TV series .. or whats called "Tamtheelyah". The was the story Flowed was a bit not too smooth. There was a lot of stretching with unnecessary sence of the streets of Riyadh or other places.

Another thing, it tired to raise so many issues but not discuss them deeply ... i don't know if thats a good or a bad thing, they raised the concept of traditional marriage, polygamy, women employment, women driving, being over strict with religion or traditions, unemployment, lack of support to art, flirting, restrictions in the life of the society and how people run on holidays from that... etc. Non of those were discussed deeply ... it was just shooting randomly at different targets scattered all over the place with no definite aim. This felt really confusing until I thought maybe it was intentional with the idea of warming up the pot for all these things to be fully raised in future productions.

All in all, I enjoyed watching the "Movie" and hope you all enjoy it as well. Hopefully we see more of them coming in the near future as the door is open now.

Thanks for reading,

Sulaiman