SPOILS ALERT! Actions in the film
are discussed in the review. I kindly invite you to watch the film before
reading the article.
DISCLAIMER: I dont have a
background on cinema, nor I have lived in Pakistan or know in deep the
Pakistani culture. I do not know to what extend is true what the film shows
about the Pakistani traditions. My criticisms below refer solely to the way in
which the story is developed in the film. Please feel free to comment, correct
or elaborate on my thoughts. Discussions are more than welcomed. Also, I am not
a native english speaker so please forgive the linguistic mistakes in the text.
"What will people say" starts
with Nisha in party clothes and make up, racing breathlessly to her home in the
dark, while her father is switching off lights and inspecting room by room that
her siblings are all right in bed. Nisha arrives just in time to climb up the
windows of her room, sneak behind the glass and jump into the mattress before
his father steps inside the room and observes with a tender smile at his oldest
daughter sleeping. It is a dynamic start in which the two conflicting mobiles
of the story are well introduced: 1) Nisha belongs, at least in part, to the
western culture and 2) his father loves and cares about her and her siblings.
However, the hook of this strong beginning is soon lost by a development of a
story in which actions are forced into a unique direction and the behaviour and
choices of the characters contradicts the way they are introduced in the film.
First incoherence: Nisha is not
being rise in the heart of a strictly traditional family. It is true that she
has a double life. Behind her parents watch she is a "western"
teenager, partying with her friends, smoking weed, flirting with guys. In the
intimacy of her family however she is a calm, studious daughter. Nevertheless,
nothing indicates that she is growing in a repressive environment. For instance,
there is the scene of his father birthday. The father plays his favourite song
and starts dancing with Nisha, her mother and her brother. When the party is
over the mother complains to the father that it is shameful for women to dance in
front of men, even if they are close relatives. The father is rather chill
about the complaint and Nisha even states that it is stupid that family cannot
dance together. No one blinks at the harsh words of Nisha, not even the classical
“watch your mouth you child and respect your elders” kind of comment that -by
the way- you would get in western families. In another scene Nisha arrives home.
Her mum is doing the chores in the kitchen, her dad and brother are taking care
of the accountability of the little store the family owns. The mother tells
Nisha to help her, but Nisha refuses stating that she is exhausted and just
like that sits at the table, texting in the phone. No one even questions the
fact that everyone is working, with the chores or the business, while Nisha is
just resting as she pleases. Later in the film we get to know that Nisha
doesn’t know how to cook and that she does not pray. How is that having such a
traditionally minded parents as the ones the film depicts later we are
presented to a 16 years’ old that doesn’t pray, doesn’t cook, doesn’t help in
the house, and literally call stupid to the Pakistani traditions?
Second incoherence: Nisha knows
very well where to draw the limits between home and her “western” life. For
instance, in one scene we see Nisha playing basketball with her friends. She
receives a call from her mum, looks at the time in the phone and with full
resolution abandons the game and takes the way home. In another occasion she is
coming back to her neighbourhood and her Norwegian love interest -they were
never a couple as it is suggested in other reviews- starts walking next to her
while engaging in a conversation. In a moment, Nisha sees a woman with a Muslim
headscarf in the other street,
coming towards them. She immediately interrupts the conversation with the boy
and hurry up home. But for me, the key scene is the one in which Nisha is sitting
at the table next to her father and her brother, who are doing the store accountability.
Nisha is texting continuously in the phone. Her father realises and stares at
her suspiciously. Just with one look back at her father Nisha understands he is
suspicious about her texting. She quickly asks him to do a math calculation.
The father is first confused, then Nisha lies and tell him that a friend of her
is texting her, asking about maths. Nisha hides very well her other life, she
is smart, and she knows how to fool her family. How is then possible that she ends
up sneaking a boy into her room, in the middle of the night, right next to her
parents’ bed? She is not naïve, she is not stupid, she knows how to play the
game and she knows there are parks, toilets, the house of the boy or anywhere
else where they could go and have some privacy.
But no, she decides to bring the guy home and the obvious
happen, they get discovered by the father. The father thinks they had sex and
became blind in rave. And here comes the third incoherence in the film, to my
view a big flaw in the argument: the immigrant father beats the underage native
Norwegian to the point that the neighbours call the police. However not
apparent consequences derive from his actions. WHAT?!!!! No way you beat an
underage in Europe and you are not sent to prison, or at least face court. You
would even risk the custody of your own children. No way an immigrant beats a
native and it is not appearing all over the media the next day. The beating of
the boy would have had huge consequences for Nisha’s father, but no, in this
film all the suffering is just canalized to the daughter.
And this bring us to the four incoherence, flaw or forced
development in the movie: Nisha is kidnapped by her parents and sent to
Pakistan because she is thought to have had sex with the boy and thereby she
dishonoured herself and her family. After the incident with the boy occurred, Nisha
ends up in the hands of social workers. These social workers are responsible of
mediating between Nisha and the family, but specially they provide support to
Nisha. All right, does any of the social workers thought about having a doctor
examining the Imen of Nisha? It is true that we do not know whether Nisha has
had sex or not before her Norwegian love interest. However, at least I will ask
her the question. If she is still virgin it is really easy to show that her
Imen is intact. She didn’t have sex with the boy outside marriage, she didn’t
commit the huge dishonour she is being blame for. Still I agree that the family
could have sent her to Pakistan, thinking that in any case kissing was already
scandalous. However, as I discussed above, the family is not presented as a
hardcore traditional one that will just risk “the better future in Norway for
their children” they father said he wanted because of kissing.
But all right, we the audience accept that no one though
about doing a medical examination of Nisha. The parents are more traditional
than first depicted and Nisha is sent to Pakistan. There, we experience the
fifth forced action in the movie: Nisha made out with her cousin, in the middle
of the street in the night in Pakistan. They are discovered by the police. In a
highly violent scene the police force the youngsters to get naked and pretend
they are having sex. They take pictures, blackmail the family and get a chunk
of money in exchange of their silence. Really? Is this whole scene likely to
happen? Nisha was sent to Pakistan in the first place because she was
discovered getting intimate with a male. Will she really risk the consequences
of being discovered in the same situation a second time? Also, the movie leaves
clear that Nisha is heavily westernized. If you are from the modern western
culture the idea of having sex with a first cousin -a close relative- is
considered gross. That for her would have already been a cultural barrier,
regardless of how handsome -he is dammed handsome-is the cousin. But fine, she couldn’t
resist the charm of his cousin and she didn’t mind the family bond. The cousin
has spent all his life in Pakistan, she has spent 8 months. If you live in a
place where the police are so corrupt and unpunished that they can do what they
did to them for sure you know, for sure you have listened to stories or
witnessed episodes of police violence against innocent people. Really you have
never seen the police patrolling at night? It never crossed your mind what they
could do to you if they catch you having sex in public in a traditional village?
The consequences of this second episode are the worst for
Nisha. The cousin’s parents refuse he marries her. She is almost assassinated
by her father because of her “dishonourable” behaviour. At last she is brought
back to Norway, where she commits to bend to the Pakistani norms and to regain
the trust of her family. The ending of the film precipitates when Nisha is set
up into an arrange marriage in Canada. The broom, a Pakistani doctor, doesn’t want
his future wife to study. She just needs to take care of the house and the children.
Of course, Nisha ends up doing the only possible thing in her situation: she
runs away from home. The last scene is Nisha disappearing into the street while
her father looks at her through the windows.
I went to watch the film with high expectations. The trailer
looked appealing and the first scenes promising. However, I soon felt disappointed.
The film does not show the conflict between two different cultures, but the
contrast between a western one which represents freedom and a middle east one which
represents brutality and repression against women. Black and white, full stop. There
is not diversity in the people in the film. We only see the suffering of Nisha.
What about the rest of her family? How does the mother feel about the actions of
her daughter? Is she debating internally? Does she feel she failed in providing
her with a right moral education? Or really the only thing she cares about is
what will people say? What about Nisha’s brother? He also grew up between the
west and the east. Does he understand, at least partially, his sister? Even if
he doesn’t show it in the film. And the father? We see a few moments in which we
experience the internal conflicts of the father: e.g. when he tries to say bye
to his daughter once he left her in Pakistan, when he breaks in tears because
he can’t kill her or when he sadly realises Nisha won’t have the high education
he dreamed for her if she marries the broom in Canada. However, those moments
are so scarce compared with the ones in which the father is just brutally violent
that they do not persist for long in the audience mind. Even with the social
workers in Norway that mediate between Nisha and her family. It would perfectly
make sense to have a social worker who is Pakistani and grew up in the western.
This person, who could be a female if the director wants to stress the empowerment
of women, would be someone able to speak the languages of Pakistan and norwegian.
She would understand both Nishas and her family sides and she will enrich the
film with an adult perspective about how to deal with the two different
cultures.
And about Pakistan itself? They are under the influence of
the western culture. For instance, the female cousin of Nisha is fan of Ryanna
and other western pop singers. Arent there people in Pakistan, even in the little
village where Nisha is sent that are also experiencing the contracts between
their traditions and the cultural standards imported from the western? They
could have exploited the character of Nisha’s female cousin for instance. She
could have shown curiosity, asking Nisha about life in Norway, about meeting
boys, even talking to boys. A young character that shows Pakistan is inserted
in the rest of the world. But no, we are just left with a traditional isolated
village.
Actions in the film are directed to only one side, to
only one possible outcome. There is nothing wrong on it itself. At last is the
choice of the director and the script writer what story to tell. However, to my
view, the film tries too hard that we side with Nisha and it is too directed to
the sole outcome of Nisha running away from her family. The chain of actions is
just too force, it is incoherent, it doesn’t feel real. Watching the film, I felt
as I was attending these kinds of commercial campaigns in which the product to
be sell is the best one you can imagine, while similar products from the
competitions are just complete failures. The result of this feeling was a
detachment, a lack of empathy with Nisha and rather a constant “is it really
like this?” questioning in my mind.
All in all, the acting is good, the scenes are well shot,
the story is what in my opinion fails. Since I do not like void criticisms that
do not propose alternatives to what it has been criticised, later I will write
a continuation of this review with proposals on how I would have writing the
scenes based on what it is shown in the movie. For now, thanks a lot for reading
me and please leave your comments.
