Rehana, written and directed by Abdullah Mohammad Saad, is not an easy film. It focuses on an incident of sexual abuse, and so, should be fairly straightforward. Sexual assaukt is bad and the perpetrators should be shamed and punished. But sometimes it’s not so simple, and this film faces this complex issue head on.
In the film we follow an assistant professor named Rehana. She works in a medical college and she’s so busy that she hardly has any time to spend with her young daughter. Instead, she relies on her brother and parents, who she lives with. Her character is very well-drawn. We learn immediately that she is strict, not all that well-liked and that she has a sense of justice that may or may not be overbearing.
In screenwriting circles, there is a perennial debate about whether a protagonist should be likeable or just someone we can empathize with. Chandler, from Friends, for example, is likeable. Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver is, arguably, not very likeable. But we can empathize with him to some extent. In Rehana, we have a protagonist that I would say is very hard to like. And try as we might, she’s also not all that easy to empathize with either.
In one of the first scenes, we see Rehana proctoring an exam. She catches one student cheating (she wrote some notes on a wooden ruler) and expels her from the exam. That seems fair enough. But the coldness and severity with which she does this lets us know that we’re dealing with quite a cold character. That coldness might be one reason the entire film is shot with a blue filter or blue overlay. But this cheating incident, which appears to be simply a bit of character exposition, will have long-ranging consequences.
Another afternoon, when the campus seems deserted, Rehana hears strange noises coming from a senior professor’s office. She soon discovers that Annie, a student who had stood up for the cheater, has been sexually assaulted by the senior professor in his office. Rehana confronts the girl, but Annie has no intention of reporting the professor. In fact, she makes it clear that she’d rather throw herself out the window than stir up any trouble. Rehana, though, presses ahead. She struggles to find the right way to confront the professor. But does not have an easy time of it.
Meanwhile, in a parallel story, her own daughter is caught in a similar situation to that of Annie. Her daughter is in trouble for biting a boy in her class. But the daughter maintains that this was self-defence since the boy kept pinching her. Eventually, this dilemma will have serious consequences for Rehana and her daughter. This parallel story is essential to the film since it shows the basic conundrum Rehana faces in a different and important light. We empathize with the daughter. But the whole situation makes us like Rehana even less since she’s so clearly neglecting her daughter and expecting everyone else to take care of her.
This film comes dangerously close to suggesting that the best course of action is minding your own business. If Rehana had let the incident go, which is what Annie and obviously the professor wanted, she could have spent more time with her own daughter, who might have behaved better in school. On the other hand, as heartbreaking as it is to watch the final scenes, we have to ask ourselves honestly what we would do if our own children were put in a situation like Rehana is regarding her daughter. There are no easy answers here.
But one lesson does come through quite clearly. And that is the importance of good social skills. This may seem to be a trivial point, but it is not. If Rehana had been better-liked by her peers and her students, this would have been a very different film. Rehana, though, is so prickly and comes across as so egotistical, that it’s just about impossible for anyone to like her or give her a fair hearing. Lawyers like to say that ‘principles have price tags.’ That’s clearly the case here. If Rehana wanted to stand up for Annie, it was always going to cost her something. But if she’d had more friends and allies in the university, the price tag might not have been so steep. Machiavelli, in his infamous work, The Prince, says that it is better for a leader to be feared than loved. That makes perfect sense. But he goes on to say that, above all, a leader must avoid being hated. This in the end was Rehana’s fatal mistake. If you really want to fight for justice, you’ll have a much easier time if you’re not hated by everyone around you.
In the end, we’re really not sure about Rehana’s deepest motives. Is she battling for justice at any cost? Is she just a resentful person? Is she, as the professor claims, simply naive? As mentioned above, the film does not give us any easy answers.
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.