This is a film full of big images, wide-angle shots and some beautiful images of the environment and cityscapes in modern Saudi Arabia. Directed by IMAX veteran Greg MacGillivray — creator of “The Living Sea,’’ “Everest,’’ and “To Fly!’’ — Arabia delivers the quintessential IMAX experience. Panoramic helicopter shots take us swooping slow motion over deserts, diving under the Red Sea to discover reefs and wrecks, and hovering over cityscapes such as Riyadh and Jeddah — all in postcard-perfect color and composition and with some rolling Arabic music and song.
As a spectacle, it is well up to IMAX standards. The content, commonplace to residents of the Kingdom, will I am sure be fascinating to the intended audience. “After 9/11, many of my friends in America think we’re all extremists,’’ says the gently voiced Jamjoom. “We’re not. As my mother says, ‘We’re not perfect.’’’ This film will go a long way toward polishing a new and positive facet of the much-maligned image of the Kingdom.
“I came on the journey to find out who we are and where we came from,” says Jamjoom. “The freedom to change is really important to my generation.” He is on a journey of discovery and obviously intends to share it with his external audience.
The journey traces the development of the peninsula from Nabataean times when Frankincense gum delivered to the Roman Empire constituted the vast bulk of trade, much as oil is now. The first “Golden Age” was solidly founded on that trade but ended abruptly in the first century AD.
He moves on to the rise of Islam and the growth of knowledge as the driver to the development of a great and influential culture. Here the film seems to wander off to become an exercise in examining the rise and influence of Islam on the development of thought and focusing on Saudi Arabia rather than wider Arabia, which would include several other countries in that growth. To an audience possessing generous helpings of preconception and misinformation but with little or no knowledge of the Kingdom, it performs its function of presenting the contribution of Jamjoom’s Arabia in general and Islam in particular with spectacle, informational content and without a hint of proselytizing.
It also weaves, however, from Persia to Arabia as if the two were interchangeable and rather glosses over the movement of knowledge from the Far East into the peninsula by implying that, what is now Saudi Arabia, was the source of much if not even the majority of science and mathematics that underpins modern knowledge. Certainly, Islamic scholars made great contributions — but as one culture among several. Persia and in particular the House of Wisdom (Beit Al-Hikma) in Baghdad was rather prominent in that field and the film conflates Persia and Arabia and does not seem to distinguish traditional Arabia Felix — the peninsula — from the area of Persian culture and influence.
The great scholars of the House of Wisdom included Al-Khawarizmi, the “father” of algebra whom Jamjoom particularly mentions, which takes its name from his book “Kitab Al-Jabr”. He strongly implies in his generalizations about the focus of Islam on seeking knowledge that this was peninsula knowledge rather than coming from what was then Persia.
That said, the fact is that it was under the knowledge-centered Islam that the culture grew and it is this that Jamjoom uses neatly to segue into the resurgence of a knowledge culture financed by the oil boom.
This is where “Arabia” just saves itself from falling into being a public relations travelogue by introducing some opinions of his own that, if you have some inside knowledge of the Kingdom, you will recognize.
“At this new house of wisdom (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology — KAUST) men and women will study and carry out research side by side. This is a huge leap forward,” says Jamjoom. Just how much of a leap he does not expand upon which is a shame and neither does he mention that the majority of students are — at least currently — foreign. In terms of public relations, certainly a seminal element in the conception of this film, it is a missed opportunity.
Jamjoom uses an “adapt to survive theme” to provide the thematic substructure of the film and this carries the dénouement to the conclusion, voiced by historian and writer on the Kingdom Robert Lacey, that: “It is too early to say if this is the third golden age” but implying that there was hope in KAUST and the four other centers of learning being developed “devoted to learning and the exploration of ideas.”
Adding his character to the film, Jamjoom personalizes himself as guide by interspersing the narrative with scenes of his family and friends, gently demystifying Islam and suggesting the everyday normality of Saudis, challenging in a very mannered way the common stereotype head on.
The film closes with generic but impressive aerial shots of the Haj, as three million Muslim pilgrims descend on Makkah and circle the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure built by Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him). It is here, implies Jamjoom, that we are reminded that Muslims, Christians, and Jews share a common heritage and speculates on a productive and perhaps shared future.
The film explores the surface of contemporary Saudi Arabian life and avoids any discussion of the relative perceptions of Middle Easterners and Westerners. It is a good-natured, benign look into Arabia and its long but intriguing history and is very easy on the eye. It should cause viewers with no knowledge of the Kingdom to take a second look at the country and its people.
Certainly, its reception by an American audience, according to Terri Rose, marketing director for the Science Museum of Virginia, has been little short of rapturous. She said that “there were tears in many eyes” at what was a “very moving night.”
Robert Lacey, historian and writer on Saudi Arabia who advised on and is touring with the film, commented on the reception by the US Audience. “I honestly can’t quite believe the depth and spontaneity of it. Muslims in the audience stood up to thank the film for portraying their faith so movingly. One American took the microphone just to say that it had made him rethink all the hostile stereotypes about Muslims and Arabs.”
