Naga follows a young woman contending with a series of perils in the middle of the desert while high out of her mind. She must overcome a rabid camel, quad bike-riding ruffians, and the police. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.
Story
Sarah gets permission to be out a bit later, shopping with her friend Hadeel. She needs to be at the meeting spot by 9:58 pm. However, she is actually going on a date with her boyfriend Saad.
He takes her to a remote camp in the desert, where a party is about to be thrown. Before arriving at the camp, and getting lost reaching there, they do drugs and begin tripping and hallucinating.
They also ram the car into a camel and he needs to be put down, as the mother camel bellows excruciatingly. The part turns into a horror show as Saad leaves Sarah to hang out with his buddies.
Sarah has a verbal spat with her friend of a long time, as she frantically searches for a phone charger. Her quest leads her to a tent where she learns that the famous poet gets his material from his assistant.
The police raids the party and chaos ensues. Enraged out of her mind, Sarah breaks up with Saad, who’s later arrested by the police, while she hides inside the car. She comes to be brutally greeted by the mother camel.
Sarah eventually escapes the camel and faces off the ruffians, and dodges them too. She hitches a ride to the city and by the time her father arrives at the meeting spot, she’s got the perfect excuse to mask all that she went through.
A nearby fire breakout makes for the perfect opportunity for Sarah to explain to her father what became of her. She reaches home and the ordeal gradually gives her a newfound courage to embrace her chaotic, spiteful side, as Naga rolls the credits.
Performances
Adwa Bader gives the film’s most solid performance as the lead who’s way more than the clichéd, stereotypical damsel-in-distress mess she could have been. Her performance is riveting and matches the energy of the narrative.
Yazeed Almajyul plays a bit childish Saad with good conviction and he makes the character very authentic and also funny with his subtle responses to what Sarah has to say or do sometimes.
Positives
There are moments throughout Naga that are very effective in providing the thrills and tension that it’s going for.
The whole mother camel sequence is one of the film’s most impressive ones and the tension is meticulously built and maintained during a time frame that was long enough for it all to have fizzled out by the end.
The film is a rather promising directorial debut despite the things that don’t work for it.
Negatives
The runtime could’ve been shaved down by a lot, and that’s where the first half of the film drags the film down.
For a film this deficient in substance and this extravagant with style and flair, a more consistently kinetic pace would have made matters more engaging.
What the message is supposed to be is sort of a mess of ambiguities as the narrative’s hold over the substance is made loose by the overwhelming style that can often be a bit grating.
Verdict
Naga is a frenetic series of pictures and sounds that carry with them a style that overwhelms the substance at every turn.
The pacing does not help matters as it only starts to engage the viewer towards a thrilling finale.
Performances, the off-kilter charm, and offbeat cinematography do help in making this one a standout directorial debut.
Naga
Director: Meshal Aljaser
Date Created: 2023-12-07 13:30
2.5
Also Read: Naga summary and ending explained