There’s a story that’s been told in Saudi Arabia for years. Long ago, the tale goes, a young tobacco merchant travelling through the desert alone was ambushed by a band of thieves. Robbed of his camel, his food and any means of protecting himself, he set off alone, struggling to survive. And when things seemed as if they couldn’t get any more desperate, he realised he was being pursued by a wolf.
That is the legend that inspired Within Sand, the first Saudi film shot entirely in Neom, directed by young Saudi filmmaker Moe Alatawi. Although it has its debut in cinemas on February 15 after its UAE premiere at Al Ain Film Festival this week, the wide release is a long time coming. The film was an award winner at the Red Sea International Film Festival in 2022, receiving the jury prize in Jeddah in the same year box-office hits such as Saudi’s Sattar and Kuwait’s How I Got There were first screened.
The story follows the myth closely – the 23-year-old Snam has decided to leave his associates and head out on a faster route, only to find two men rifling through the packs on his camel when he returns from a hunt.
It is in this scene that the film begins to find some propulsive tension. The film's earliest sequences do a lot to build the world, but lack real dramatic heft, with at-times stilted cuts back and forth during long-winded dialogue that make one a bit anxious to actually get on with an ostensible thriller – though the sumptuous cinematography does a lot to keep the eye engaged.
From here, it becomes a familiar, Jack London-esque tale of survival. Snam tries to find food, digs for water, rubs sticks together to start a fire. Then the film’s most compelling character shows up, the wolf, and the two soon form a bond that brings out a different side in both man and beast.
“Nelson, the wolf from Horkai Centre in Hungary, became an integral part of our cast by the third day of filming,” Alatawi says. “We all felt his absence when we filmed his final scene.”
Watching the film, it’s hard not to feel the same way. The wolf steals every scene he’s in, and with the backdrop of the sand and pillars of rock, this may be the most beautiful film yet produced in the kingdom.
Alatawi’s film stars a host of up-and-comers – Adwa Fahd (Netflix’s From the Ashes), Muhand Alsaleh, Fatima Alsharif and Obaid Alwadaani – all led by newcomer Ra’ed Alshammari, who plays Snam. The cast is more than capable, although no performance is a particular star-maker.
The real stand-outs of Within Sand are the film’s landscapes, and the kingdom’s heritage. Filmed in Tabuk, in Neom, on the north-west coast, it’s hard to even conceive of a budget for the film, because every shot carries with it pure majesty, elevating the proceedings in a way that American filmmakers of the Western genre once found in Monument Valley as they shot horse-bound films starring John Wayne and Randolph Scott.
You can tell this is a filmmaker who cares about details, harbouring a clear fascination with physical things. In one scene, Snam finds the abandoned camp of his compatriots and picks up an old camera, wondering aloud what it is. Both Snam and the camera linger on the object, passing a palpable sense of awe to the viewer, as well as a sense of time and place.
That’s not to say that Alatawi does not prove himself to be a capable visual stylist, because it’s not just the landscape that draws the eye. The costuming and art direction are particular highlights, with thobes and abayas that look like something Saudi designer Abdulrahman Abed might put on the red carpet through his brand Qormuz, and hand-crafted bright blue pieces adorning the camels, bringing some much-needed colour back to the big screen in a way drab modern filmmakers always seem to forget.
This is most effective as a love letter to Saudis from another age, with a focus on the music, people and traditions. Even in slow moments, such as the long opening before Snam finds himself stranded, there are wonderful elements.
The men survey the sand dunes, for example, to get a sense of the way the winds blow. It’s here that you can tell this is not a film made by an outsider who lacks curiosity or understanding.
Rather, it becomes very clear that this is a film made by a man eager to give his culture a greater platform, making a film with a crew that was 60 per cent Saudi, with two female Saudi producers, who worked closely with the Bani Attiya tribe of the area to capture the Bedouin heritage as well as its wisdom.
This is based on just one true story of the desert, surely one of thousands still to be told. With films like this to start us off, I can’t wait to see many more.
