True crime might be the cornerstone of the podcast industry, or so it would seem by the number of people who engaged in amateur detecting. Murder is an intriguing (and obviously horrific) crime; perhaps it's not surprising that an unintended effect of forensics-centred cop shows, is people who think they they understand real forensics and can solve crimes. But often it's not just about finding the criminal, but making sure the victim is given the justice they deserve.
Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour (Wadjda, Mary Shelley) once again returns to themes of women's status and place in her country's society with Unidentified. Only this time, she wraps it in a murder mystery and one woman's determination to solve it. The film combines that insatiable curiosity with the pursuit of justice, in the secondary mystery of why this one woman is so determined to find this particular truth.
Nawal (Mila Alzahrani, The Perfect Candidate) is dealing with a lot of change in her life: she is newly divorced from her husband, she has taken an apartment living on her own (much the chagrin of her brother), and a job digitizing files for the police. She also happens to be a fan of true crime stories, so when a teenage girl's body is found in the desert outside Riyadh, the police lieutenant (knowing of her hobby) asks her help with trying to identify the body, to look for clues that the all-male police teak might miss. With little to go on, and the clock ticking before the unclaimed body is sent to an unmarked grave, Nawal is determined to make sure the girl is identified.
Like any good amateur detective, and a woman who thinks about the type and quality of women's clothing and the markings thereon, Nawal narrows her search to private schools for girls. She hits some walls with adults, but teen girls, perhaps like Nawal herself, chafe at restrictions imposed by their society and finds small ways to rebel, allowing Nawal to further her investigation. Al Masour keeps this plot moving at a clipping pace, and we're drawn into Nawal's world and want, as much as she does, to follow the clues. Is this about a girl dishonouring her family? A case of mistaken identity? Why would no one come forward to claim the body?
Because this is a society in which girls are not valued; or at least, only valued as fare as they are wives and mothers, expected to only associate with other women or the men of their family. As Nawal's brother chastises her first for her divorce and then for not immediately seeking another marriage, we learn what broke up her first one: the death of her baby girl, a mere two days after birth. Nawal's grief and trauma over the loss of her child, and the dismissal of that loss by her ex-husband and others around her, drive her to make sure this unclaimed girl does not suffer the same fate in death.
Alzahrani plays Nawal are, not completely naive in her pursuit of justice, and more than once very reckless in the literal pursuits that could easily cost her physical safety or worse. But she's determined that neither she, nor the girl, will become more nameless victims of a society that does not value women, either in their life or death. But the mystery remains central, and it's crafted, as all good mysteries in various layers of subterfuge, and as long as Nawal doesn't give up, she will wear down those who seek to keep her from the truth.
That truth is dropped in subtle clues along the way, and easy to miss, like so many good mysteries. And likely will shock the audience as much as the characters (but not spoilers here). Unidentified combines its deft rue crime/amateur detective elements with an exploration of how women struggle in Saudi society, and how, in unusual ways, they subvert that struggle.