GRIPPING SCHOOL MELODRAMA BRINGS OUT BEST IN SAUDI ARABIA’S YOUNG TALENT
▶ Popular on Netflix, Khalid Fahad’s film is a tragic tale, murder mystery and teen comedy with an emerging cast destined for a bright future, writes
If you jumped into From the Ashes without knowing about the tragedy that inspired it, you may think you are watching a spin-off of Netflix’s other breakout Arab hit Al Rawabi School for Girls.
The opening sequence of the film, the second by Saudi filmmaker Khalid Fahad, brings audiences into the homes of teenage girls as they get ready for what seems like another average, gruelling day at their high school in rural Saudi Arabia. We witness the pressures put on them to dress a certain way, for example, just as we see them tear off each garment the second their parents turn the corner.
There is incessant judgment from their teachers, the staff and their peers. There is palpable anxiety over how each moment’s performance might define their futures.
Perhaps there is joy in this world, too, but we can hardly see it. The fire has not even started yet, but already From the Ashes feels uncomfortable.
Fahad packs a lot more into the film’s 92-minute runtime than initially meets the eye. From afar, this should just be a simple retelling of a real-life tragedy, the story of an all-girls school caught in a fatal fire. But this is much more – it is a murder mystery, a high school melodrama, a thriller and at times a teen comedy.
The heart-wrenching event the film’s premise prepares us for, the big fire, comes in the first 30 minutes. That alone might leave you colder than expected. Once that is out of the way, however, the film starts to get more interesting. Globally on Netflix, it is now ranked inside the top five non-English films on the platform.
The director has always been a man of ambition. In fact, From the Ashes arrives only six months after his first film, the Ithra-produced Valley Road, hit cinemas. While that one did not find the audience it deserved if you seek it out, you will find the work of a filmmaker anxious to give back to a medium that gave him so much – it is a Disney-esque musical, a road adventure, a
coming-of-age saga and a work of pure family-friendly fantasy. He also showed an immediate talent for bringing out the best in his young performers.
In fact, if there is joy to be found as it goes on, it is in the performances. After one of the classmates is found dead, locked in a wardrobe as the fire
spreads, an investigation begins into who put her in there, and everyone becomes a suspect.
The school’s principal, played by Saudi actress Shaimaa Al Tayeb (Hajjan) is a genuinely layered character, and Al Tayeb makes it plain why she is the most tenured actor of the bunch, projecting menace and
tenderness in equal measure. But it is the cast who make it feel like we are watching the next generation of Saudi talent – a key aspect of the fun in keeping a close eye on the kingdom’s growing film industry.
It only takes a few scenes with young performers such as Wafa Muhamad and Hamss Bandar,
and it is clear that each has a big future in front of them.
For Fahad, the question is how many genres he plans to tackle in his next effort. With these two compelling works under his belt, I will be there to find out.