This 'Bedouin Western', set in the land of Lawrence of Arabia, is about a boy who, in order to survice, must become a man and live up to the name - "Theeb"/"Wolf" - his father gave him.
The film takes place during the Middle Eastern theatre of the First World War, in the wake of the Great Arab Revolt against the ruling Ottoman Empire, and is a coming-of-age story about a Bedouin boy, Theeb, who must survive in the wide-open Wadi Rum desert.
It was filmed in the same area where "Lawrence of Arabia" was shot in the early 1960s, but it is an inversion of that film in that it is told from the perspective of Arab bedouins rather than a colonial adventurer.
It includes some beautiful scenery and wonderful performances by non-professional actors from a Bedouin community in southern Jordan. The only professional actor is Jack Fox who plays the British officer with a faint whiff of Lawrence of Arabia. I loved this movie as it brought back many memories of my own time in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
And here's the soundtrack of Lawrence of Arabia which, more than the money, made me go to Saudi Arabia. "What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you personally to the desert?" "It's clean." Turn up the volume!
