{"id":234,"date":"2025-12-09T21:58:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/?p=234"},"modified":"2025-12-09T21:59:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:59:46","slug":"my-yelp-review-of-theeb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/my-yelp-review-of-theeb\/","title":{"rendered":"My Yelp Review of Theeb"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello my fellow yelpers! I recently watched the 2014 period drama thriller, \u201cTheeb\u201d. Written and directed by Naji Abu Nowar, the film premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. This movie, unlike many shot in a similar area, picturing a similar time period, is completely in Arabic (with the exception of a few English words spoken by the British soldier (played by Jack Fox) sent to blow up the railway). Nowar also only used non-professional actors from the Bedouin community in Southern Jordan. This also differs from the norm in movies about this time period, namely in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) where Prince Feisal (an Arab character) is played by Alec Guinness (random white dude).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The very interesting and very notable aspect of this movie is the absence of women. Originally I came to the conclusion that Nowar was simply a sexist. However, upon further research I discovered that Nowar was planning for there to be women in the movie but none of the Bedouin women in the community they were filming were willing to be in the movie. Nowar didn\u2019t want to lose any authenticity by bringing in professional actors, which led to the whole no women thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The plot line is very simple: Theeb and his older brother help guide Edward, a British soldier, through the desert, they are ambushed and Theeb is the only survivor, one of the attackers becomes friends with Theeb, they set off the two of them, and the movie ends with Theeb killing the attacker (\u201cbecause he killed my brother\u201d as Theeb says to Ottoman guards). The last scene of the movie watches Theeb riding off into the desert on a camel he has now learned how to corral (I always appreciated how Theeb was able to cling onto the back of a camel, FOR HOURS, the strength that he has is astou<\/span><\/p>\n

nding). Honestly, my biggest issue wi<\/span>th the f<\/span>ilm is that I was worried and am still worried about what happened to Theeb after the movie. How did he survive on his own in the desert? Where did he go? The unfinished ending left<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"me slightly frustrated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I would 100% recommend this movie to anyone, especially those who have watched Lawrence of Arabia. It provides a very different perspective to many of the movies that depict the time period. Not only does having the entire movie be spoken in Arabic change it, but using non-professional actors also adds nuance. It takes away the \u201coriental glow\u201d that surrounds the whole Lawrence of Arabia type of story and allows viewers to actually see the Arab perspective during this time. Nowar alludes to the very real struggles that Arab guides had during the Ottoman Empire with the installation of the Hejaz Railroad. Also, Wadi Rum and Wadi Araba are beautiful and Nowar\u2019s cinematography is excellent. I truly compel you all to watch this, it was a very interesting watch and one that changed the perspective on the time period.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

See you next week with the next movie, yelper fam!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello my fellow yelpers! I recently watched the 2014 period drama thriller, \u201cTheeb\u201d. Written and directed by Naji Abu Nowar, the film premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. This movie, unlike many shot in a similar area, picturing a similar time period, is completely in Arabic (with the exception of a few English … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “My Yelp Review of Theeb”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7229,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-gender","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}