Review: Humor and hallucination combine in Saudi Arabia’s Oscar submission ‘Raven Song’ 

JEDDAH: The surreal and real mix in director Mohamed Al-Salman’s debut feature “Raven Song,” which played at the recent Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah and is the Kingdom’s submission for the Best International Feature Film at the upcoming Academy Awards. 

In the opening scenes, we see a young man named Nasser (Asem Alawad) being diagnosed with brain tumor. The only way out is a surgery, but he is told in no uncertain terms that it is a risky procedure.