Since his first feature The Final Cut in 2004, Lebanese director Omar Naim has evinced a taste for derivative B-movie thrillers that largely stick to well-worn genre forms and rarely make much of a splash. With his first Saudi production, Route Ten, the storyline is once again a retread, yet underneath the usual formulaic elements – brother and sister with a guilty secret drive across the desert terrorized by a mystery man in a white Jeep – lies a fascinating declaration of liberation from the Saudi old guard. The rebellious message can likely be ascribed to Saudi co-writer Khalid Fahad (also a director), who takes the film to a far more original level, assisted by engaging leads Fatima Al-Banawi and Baraa Alem. Route Ten could well be a popular hit at home, where its subversiveness will be most appreciated, and should get traction at genre fests.
Well-off siblings Maryam (Al-Banawi) and Nasser (Alem) are set to fly from Riyadh to Abu Dhabi for an important wedding when they get a call saying the flight’s been cancelled. Via video chat, their brow-beating mega-developer father Mohammad Al Muhannad (Abdul Mohsin Al Nimr) leaves them no option: get in the BMW and drive the eight hours to be there on time. It’s a straight road – in fact Route 10 is the longest, straightest highway in the world – and no one anticipates any problems until a menacing white Jeep begins dogging their path.
The concept is hardly new, tracing itself back to Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971) and later permutations such as Breakdown (1997), Joy Ride (2001) and countless others in which a madman with a grudge terrorizes people in an isolated vehicle. Naim and his colleagues don’t aim for originality with the nuts and bolts, and they have fun ratcheting up the tension as the psycho Jeep driver turns murderous just when mobile phone coverage is lost, leading to a cat-and-mouse chase across the mesmerizing desert landscape.
Script-wise, the first half is largely derivative, clumsily parceling out information in the manner of an old made-for-TV movie, and even the way the siblings’ shared guilty secret is withheld and then revealed doesn’t generate any kind of jolt. But things get more psychologically interesting when brother and sister begin to share frustrations about their upbringing: Maryam felt ignored by their father, who had no interest in encouraging a daughter’s ambitions, while Nasser was suffocated under Dad’s expectations and control. Here’s where the subversive nature of Route Ten starts to interact with the standard trappings of the road movie genre, more forcefully driven home at the end when it becomes clear that dismissing it as just another imitative B horror-thriller misses the point entirely. In its depiction of a generational clash between entitled patriarchy and globalized, forward-thinking Millennials, the film throws down a gauntlet, declaring in no uncertain terms that the era of toxic Saudi power (at least on a personal level) is being challenged by a younger population who insist on equal opportunities and won’t turn a blind eye to abusive behavior towards foreign workers. It takes a moment to sink in, but once it does, the stance is clear, bold and potentially liberating.
Rising stars Fatima Al-Banawi (Barakah Meets Barakah) and Baraa Alem (The Book of Sun) have an easy rapport together, especially necessary given how much of the film is just the two of them in the car surrounded by nothing but sand dunes. Both combine warmth with sharp intelligence, which is why they seem so ill-served at times by commonplace dialogue, yet their appealing screen presence helps to compensate. In addition, actor-filmmaker Rakan Anneghaimshi adds a welcome note of humor as a highway cop who completely misjudges the danger they’re all facing.
American DP Matthew Irving delivers standard visuals relieved by some nice drone shots that reinforce the road’s stark isolation, though lighting tends to be overly uniform. Given that the print viewed at the Red Sea Film Festival wasn’t quite complete, it could be that final color correction might fix the problem. The film was originally titled The Empty Quarter.
Director: Omar Naim
Screenplay: Omar Naim, Khalid Fahad
Cast: Baraa Alem, Fatima Al-Banawi, Abdul Mohsin Al Nimr, Rakan Anneghaimshi
Producers: Almotaz Aljefri, Rami Yasin
Cinematography: Matthew Irving
Production design: Safi Raai
Costume design: Missy Tohmeh
Editing: Zeina Abdul-Hosn, Ahmed Hamdy
Sound: Rana Eid
Production companies: MBC Group (Saudi Arabia), Image Nation (UAE)
World sales: MBC Group
Venue: Red Sea International Film Festival (New Saudi/New Cinema)
In Arabic
80 Minutes
