Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Saudi Women’s Driving School’ On HBO, A Documentary About Saudi Arabia’s First Female Drivers In Decades

Since a late 1950s royal decree, women have not been allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. It’s a part of the larger guardianship system in the country, where even grown women have to clear just about anything with a male guardian, be it their father, husband, or even son. But women have been fighting for more rights for decades, often at their own peril. A protest where women drove in public in 1990 led to arrests. Women who drove in online videos in the 2010s were arrested and jailed. But in 2017, the government lifted the ban. A new film goes to a driving school and a racetrack to talk to some of the first female Saudi drivers in decades. Read on for more…

SAUDI WOMEN’S DRIVING SCHOOL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The documentary Saudi Women’s Driving School talks to a number of the first women to drive in the country in decades, some of whom are instructors at the Saudi Driving School in Riyadh, said to be the largest driving school in the world and opened to handle the influx of women who will be looking to get their driver’s licenses.

In the film, directed by Erica Gornall, instructors and students are interviewed, including Sarah, who lives with her widowed mother and no men in the house, so they used to have to take taxis everywhere. Now a car salesperson, she dreams of getting her license so she can drive her mom around in a brand new Ford Taurus.

Another interviewee, Sahad, is one of Saudi Arabia’s first female Uber drivers, and she’s an activist that wants the rest of the guardianship laws repealed. Any time a man gets into her car, they usually say she’s the first woman they’ve ridden with, are surprised that she drives so well, and, while they support the driving initiative, they’re not sure women should get more freedoms. Sahad does her best to discuss this with male passengers who decide to engage, but as we see in the face of one of her passengers, they sometimes regret that they got the whole discussion started.

Besides the driving school, the film visits a racetrack where female race drivers are doing time trials. Amjad is one of the racers; she’s been driving — at least in private — since she was 13. We see her final round, and when she wipes out off of a turn, for a moment we wonder if she’s hurt. But she walks away unscathed, and still wins the race based on her previous times.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Most documentaries about Saudi Arabia discuss the nation’s sponsorship of terrorism, the oil-based economy, their fundamentalist society or the nation’s repression of people’s civil rights. Saudi Women’s Driver School, takes the last three issues into account, but spin it in a positive way, showing that the country is facing the reality that women will eventually have equal rights to men. They’re doing this in baby steps — letting women drive, and later repealing some of the guardianship laws — but women are becoming more vital to the economy, so it’s a necessary thing.

Performance Worth Watching: Amal al-Jaber is one of the school’s instructors and seems to be a strong woman who knows that the culture in the country is changing. When we see her interviewed with her husband, we then see her try to speak up as her husband struggles to answer the questions directed to her about why the culture is what it is and why women are expected to take care of the home while men work.

We also enjoyed how panicky she was teaching Sarah to drive. “What were you doing in that roundabout?” she says to her student with a semi-frightened laugh. Teaching driving, even on a massive campus with test roads, is still one of the most stressful things anyone can do, even in Saudi Arabia.

Memorable Dialogue: Amal’s husband likens Saudi women being inside the house to the care of a palm tree. “It’s not to belittle her, because the palm tree has great value in Saudi Arabia. If I leave it outside, it’s not the same as keeping it in my house; protected, well-maintained, watered. When it’s outside, in the burning sun, subjected to sandstorms, it will wither and die.” We’re suspecting that behind her burqa, Amal’s gritting her teeth at the comparison.

Our Take: Films like Saudi Women’s Driving School are of immense value because it shows the more subtle aspects of a society that Western media paint in massively broad strokes. Gornall got unprecedented access to the driving school and to the women they interviewed, and that access gave a view of a country that we don’t know a whole lot about.

Yes, the idea that women weren’t allowed to drive in the country until two years ago seems absurd on its face But it’s not like Saudi women were just taking this situation lying down, as we see in the numerous women who have been arrested and jailed for driving over the last 30 years.

The film shows what that Saudi women are strong and determined, not weak and resigning. They know that a lot of the rules that are designed to take away their rights are not religious-based but purely the creation of the royal family. Even the lifting of the driving ban has a caveat, as the film’s Saudi expert says: The government didn’t want people to think this was done in response to protests, but it was their own decision.

It also shows that Saudi women aren’t trying to throw off their burqas and hijabs, at least not right now. They’re not subservient but they also know that a society can’t change overnight, and they need to work within the system while trying to change it. Yes, there are refugees who leave the country because their civil rights are being repressed by their families and government. But as Sahad discusses with two of her friends — both of whom have career-type jobs, something that’s also relatively new in the country — that’s not the experience of most women there.

It’s a straightforward film, but there are sweeping aerial scenes of the school and the rock formations in the Saudi desert, where one of the women drives to just to get peace. It breaks up the talking heads just a bit and adds some grandiosity to the other, more intimate moments.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Saudi Women’s Driving School takes a positive look at changing mores in a country we don’t see a lot of, but not without addressing the larger problems that are still apparent.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, FastCompany.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

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