<span>Six short films from Saudi Arabia </span><span>were released on Netflix </span><span>last week, in a collection </span><span>called Six </span><span>Windows in the Desert.</span> <span>The shorts range in genre and length, </span><span>from a </span><span>Surrealist </span><span>Abstract piece of</span><span> Modern art</span><span> to </span><span>science fiction cent</span><span>red</span><span> on a plane crash.</span> <span>The importance of these short films being made available worldwide cannot be overstated. </span><span>Up until recently, it was very difficult to see the films coming out of the kingdom. </span><span>This Netflix collection</span><span> offers a glimpse</span><span> into the everyday lives of Saudi Arabian youths, and how they deal with the country's past, and its ambitious future.</span> <span>Two of the six </span><span>stand out: </span><span><em>Wasati</em></span><span> </span><span>by Ali Kalthami, and </span><span><em>The Rat</em></span><span> </span><span>by Faisal Alamer. </span><span>The former, which</span><span> has a running time of 34 minutes</span><span>,</span><span><em> </em></span><span>focuses on the real-life events of 2006 when a group of extremist clerics attended a </span><span>play </span><span>performed by students at Al Yamamah University in Riyad</span><span>h, and proceeded to attack the actors on stage. The event garnered a lot of attention </span><span>in Saudi society, and now stands as one of the last vestiges of the old Saudi stance towards the arts.</span> <span>What makes </span><span>the film stand out, though, is not its depiction of the incident, but how it manages to spin what happened and make it a positive event in modern Saudi history. The stand-in for the kingdom in this case is a character </span><span>who works in a music shop and starts to lose his sight gradually, until one day he is completely blind. Before he does, </span><span>though, he goes through a period of artistic exploration, watching classic films and admiring paintings </span><span>from around the world. The </span><span>blind man is then seen </span><span>attending the fatal university play, and while everyone was busy with the fighting, a </span><span>shoe strikes his head, and somehow partially returns his sight. An allegory of a wake up call</span><span>.</span> <span><em>The Rat</em></span><span> is a</span><span> more subversive piece. </span><span>Alamer paints moving tableaux</span><span> with the camera, and presents a film unlike any other that has come out of the </span><span>Gulf. </span><span>Its messages</span><span> aren't spelled out clearly, but are </span><span>told through </span><span>camera angles and broad, uncomfortable moments of dialogue. </span><span>The film tells the story of a man</span><span> haunted by his past, and possibly</span><span> his ancestors. </span><span>The direction presents us with frames in which the viewer can insert his or her own interpretations.</span> <span>Alamer </span><span>invokes the works of </span><span>Surrealist directors </span><span>such as David Lynch and Sergei Parajanov in telling this simple yet evocative tale.</span> <span>The other four shorts – </span><span><em>Is </em></span><span><em>Sumiyati </em></span><span><em>Going to </em></span><span><em>Heaven</em></span><span>, </span><span><em>Predicament in Sight</em></span><span>, </span><span><em>27th of Shaban</em></span><span>, and </span><span><em>Curtain –</em></span><span> should all be watched and experienced, too. Although the intention was never for them to be presented as a collection, </span><span>the</span><span> films fit together to reflect </span><span>Saudi society and the changes happening</span><span> within it.</span> <em><span>Six windows in the Desert is on Netflix worldwide now</span></em>
