What We Are Watching Today: Valley Road

DUBAI: In occasions of uncertainty, most individuals preach warning. Most individuals are usually not Abdulaziz Almuzaini. Over the previous 27 years, the Saudi author has put collectively an astounding physique of labor that has earned him a loyal following in his residence nation, turning his creations — such because the animated hit “Masameer” — into family names. Now, he’s about to take his greatest leap but, crafting a live-action movie, “Head to Head,” for Netflix that pushes the envelope additional than ever earlier than. However is Saudi Arabia prepared for it? 

“Saudis don’t have a protracted historical past of creating movies, so there’s no secure bets proper now,” Almuzaini tells Arab Information. “We’re all nonetheless looking for the pleasure factors. All we are able to do is experiment and see what works. 

“With this movie, we’re attempting one thing fully new, and we gave it our all. We don’t need to be secure and stick solely to what we all know,” he continues. “Being secure, we consider, could be disrespectful to our viewers. On the finish of the day, we simply need our followers to know that we didn’t take them as a right.”  

“Head to Head” (“Ras B Ras” in Arabic) — which launches August 3 — could also be a brand new medium for each Almuzaini and his good friend and collaborator Malik Nejer, nevertheless it maintains the identical madcap vitality that has made “Masameer” a sensation on YouTube (and now on Netflix as “Masameer County”) since its debut in 2011. Stuffed with shiny colours and flying bullets, the movie tells the story of a bumbling chauffeur named Darwish (Adel Redwan) and an unqualified new CEO named Fayadh (Abdulaziz Alshehri) who get pulled right into a world of crime after unintentionally choosing up the mistaken man on the airport. It’s all set within the fictional Saudi metropolis of Bathaikha.  

“I had the concept throughout a bout with author’s block, truly,” Almuzaini explains. “I used to be caught on one other factor I used to be writing, and I took a break to observe ‘Birds of Prey,’ a Batman spin-off. I began to suppose, ‘Why can’t Saudi Arabia have a Gotham metropolis?’ I wished to create a type of fictional worlds that show you how to neglect actuality for a pair hours till the lights come again up,” says Almuzaini.  

Conscious that it is perhaps too jarring to viewers to drop the movie into a completely fictional, funhouse-mirror model of the Kingdom from the opening credit, Almuzaini determined to ease the movie into his new world, beginning first in acquainted Riyadh earlier than occasions pull the 2 leads into Bathaika’s absurdist shadows. 

“That gave me an opportunity to actually go loopy. The second you see that automotive go down the highway, you recognize you’re headed to no unusual city. The movie tells you ‘Don’t take this severely. You at the moment are headed to a lawless land with its personal guidelines.’ We wished to create a disconnect, the place it begins clear and tidy, after which increase — insanity,” says Almuzaini.  

Whereas the spirit of the movie remains to be proudly cartoonish, its creators by no means meant the undertaking to be a cartoon at any stage of improvement. In reality, a part of what drove Almuzaini into the world of live-action storytelling after greater than a decade was a response to criticism that he’d obtained over time as a profitable animator.  

“I bear in mind folks saying that we’re solely profitable as a result of we’re the one ones doing animation. They thought we thrived due to an absence of competitors. So I stated, ‘OK, then we’ll present them we are able to do it on the identical enjoying discipline.’ I made a decision to discovered a brand new manufacturing firm, Sirb, and with that we’ll solely make live-action movies,” he says. 

Almuzaini took a gathering with Netflix, and instructed them his new concept, undecided how they might reply.  

“Fortunately, they had been very supportive. I stated ‘Give me two motion pictures to learn to do that, I would must fail to determine how to do that proper.’  They stated, ‘We’ll offer you three.’ I’m grateful for that. That form of belief fueled me to make one thing I’m actually pleased with,” he says. 

This isn’t the primary time that Almuzaini has thrown himself into the deep finish and found out learn how to swim on the fly. In reality, this that’s how this complete journey started again in 1996. 

“After I was 16, I failed math. My father was in London on the time, however I knew when he got here again I’d be in big hassle, so I needed to provide you with one thing to set issues proper. I bear in mind I took {a magazine}, noticed a political cartoon, and I began tracing it. I copied it completely, and I took it to the headquarters of a serious newspaper, and located the editor in chief,” says Almuzaini. 

“I went to him and stated, ‘Hey, I’m a cartoonist. Have a look at this doodle that I’ve completed.’ He noticed it, and he employed me on the spot. By the point my father got here again, he realized that I failed math, however now I used to be a day by day publishing cartoonist for a serious paper on the age of 16. How may he be mad?” 

It was a job that he saved till 2008, determining his model and voice alongside the way in which, By the point he give up, he was on the peak of his recognition, solely stepping away as a result of he felt that there wasn’t a future in newspapers anymore. Quickly after, he despatched an e mail to an animator he’d by no means met named Malik Nejer, beginning one of the vital fruitful partnerships in fashionable Center East leisure on a whim.  

Whereas Myrkott Animation Studio — and Almuzaini’s partnership with Nejer — will proceed, “Head to Head” is simply the start of a brand new journey for Almuzaini, who’s proud that he’s developed a legion of supporters who will observe him to new inventive frontiers, however can also be fearful that each one of his upcoming experiments may alienate individuals who have grown accustomed to 1 particular tone. 

“Having supporters is a blessing and a curse,” he says. “It comes with expectations. I’m anxious about that, however I’m additionally thrilled. Sure, that is my first live-action movie, however no fan goes to think about it that manner — we gained’t get handled as newcomers as a result of they know us so properly. That’s respect. So we needed to present them the identical respect and make one thing worthy of their perception in us.” 

What is going to come subsequent? Count on the sudden. Almuzaini has grown bored with watching motion pictures that each one really feel like they had been based mostly off the identical method, in an period when screenplay books and ChatGPT have sucked the soul out of storytelling.    

“The one factor a pc can’t ever replicate is actual human feelings, in order that’s what I’m after. I promise that’s what every of my motion pictures will ship,” says Almuzaini.