However, that has not stopped him from pursuing his dream of making movies. His latest effort is the short film “Debts”, which offers an exploration into the mechanics of Saudi society from the perspective of seven completely different characters.

“The point of the film was to show how our community is confused and to demonstrate how judgmental it can be of people,” Tarzan says of the film.

He adds that the name was chosen to emphasize the social, cultural and religious responsibilities that govern the behavior of people living in Saudi society.

Tarzan’s favorite film is the controversial “A Clockwork Orange”. He says he also identifies with the underdog theme of boxing classic Rocky. The social themes of both movies, most notably marginalization and the struggle in developing a unique identity, has been used to craft “Debts”.

The 27-year-old was studying chemical engineering before he found his true calling as a filmmaker. However, he says that although he only started analyzing the technical aspects of films when he was a teenager, his passion developed at a very young age.

“My family told me that when I was a year and a half old, I would be sitting with my father, my uncle and my mother just watching movies. They said when I woke up at night I would go downstairs and put the tape into the video recorder so I could continue watching them,” he says.

He still had a year to go before he graduated, when he decided to take the plunge and have a go at making a film.

“I told myself that I would never be able to get creative as a chemical engineer, let me try to make a film, to see if I’m a director or not,” he says.

“When I completed my first shot, I found myself. I found myself in filmmaking.”

Tarzan says his next goal is to make a feature film.

“I am trying to make a movie as ambitious as ‘The Terminator’. I want to make a character that people will love and identify with. It will be commercial, not arty. Commercial, but with a strong hidden message.”
 

Take seven different characters, each meant to represent a facet of Saudi society, put them around a restaurant table and you have the potentially explosive setting for Hamzah Tarzan’s short film “Debts”.

“Debts” is full of stereotypes. There is the chain-smoking divorcee who is trying to carve out her own identity, the serious thobe-wearing businessman who firmly believes a woman’s place is in the home and the hijab-wearing feminist who wants equal rights for all.

They are joined by other memorable characters who all have their part to play in this insightful drama.

There is no doubt that the actors tuck into their roles with noticeable gusto and they are directly responsible for the chemistry that helps make this film so watchable.

Tarzan denies that his aim was to introduce stereotypes into the film and he would rather we view his film as a window into the inner dynamics of Saudi society.

From this perspective “Debts” does work, albeit rather unsubtly. This is because, at the end of it all, he needs to rely on simple caricatures in order to realize his vision.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. What is not so good about the film is the choppy editing, which at times does not accurately convey the characters’ emotions.

This is painfully obvious on frequent occasions when one character is speaking and the camera suddenly cuts away to the person being addressed for the duration of the speech. As a result we do not fully appreciate the impact of the dialogue at times.

This should not detract from the fact that this is still an accomplished effort from Tarzan. His film is enjoyable, punctuated with moments of genuine comedy, and he does manage to deliver a telling insight into Saudi society today.

Flawed, but a gem nevertheless.