Review: Aisha/ Emma

Review: Aisha/ Emma
door egmond codfried » 18 sep 2010 13:35


[Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol as Emma Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley]

AISHA

The timing could not have been better for me as I'm presently surrounded by scholarly books about author Jane Austen (1775-1817). I'm writing a research 'Was Jane Austen Black?' based on her personages who all are Blacks, and her own personal description as a dark brown woman, with African facial traits. All of these works are seriously flawed and ideological racist, as they never touch on the insistent skin colour schematics Austen offers. But they have an analysis of Emma (1816), which is one of Austen's last novels, and is credited as her most accomplished and cynical; but the hardest to analyse. Aisha (2010) is an Indian, movie adaptation of Emma and there is no colour subtext. To me Emma seems to resist analysis because it should not be read as a straight romantic story, but as an allegory about Black History, the causes of The French Revolution and the new political realities the classes must accept. It's a novel about self-knowledge, self-improvement and a warning to Blacks to pay attention and not to be afraid of change.

The movie treats the book as a straight romantic story, without any attempt at historification. (is this not an English word?) There are a few faint references to her other novels and scholarly approaches. It's in a sense a picaresque story, with things just happening to the protagonist; Aisha/Emma. A rich, and wilful girl who takes up the business of matchmaking with disastrous results. Hurting the ones she sets out to help. It takes a long time before she discovers how wrong she is. Finally at the brink of self-annihilation her instincts kick in. Throughout she is questioned and scolded by her livelong friend Arjun, the Mr. Knightley of the novel. The film writers carefully preserved the basic storyline, asking themselves; what makes Emma, Emma? A true cinematographic tour de force! Any adaptation is a new reading, an experiment and a comment on the original. Emma is much about class and rank, which does not translate well to the merotocratic and cosmopolitan world in which we live today. So the makers omitted these two major forces, which in the novel work on Emma. Aisha now only belongs to metropolis of Delhi, hardly a country village, and the moneyed higher classes. There is no threat to her social position, which is really the greatest driving force and the danger in Emma. Aisha is not, like Emma, the dominating presence, nor is she a queen about to be dethroned. Just someone who manages to be the centre of attention. And this she does most beautifully in a stunning Dior wardrobe.

The white Miss Harriet Smith, Shevaly in the movie, is a middle class girl from the village who, even worse in light of the original, does not accept being perceived as socially inferior. Miss Smith from the novel is acutely aware of her inferiority to Emma, which makes Emma's attention to her so remarkable. Gear is of great importance, also cars and houses which today only scream 'money' and not 'class and breeding.' The trips to Donwell and Box-Hill are represented by a trip to a white water rafting resort, where the company also indulges in some weed smoking. It's a nice touch to be alerted to the fact that Emma and her set would today be knocking about in Dior, Chanel, Ferragamo and Louis Vuitton, but I 'am not prepared to have them smoking pot! Perhaps this shows too much realism, even to the point of showing them sitting on toilets; as a device of verisimilitude. The unity of place is however less enforced as it is in Emma because we actually get to see the places outside Highbury/Delhi, where Emma as a novel is situated.

It's hard. How would the movie have satisfied me if I did not know the story beforehand? What about the folks who don't know Jane Austen? The look is very modern and contemporary. The main characters are dressed in European stile. Stylish, elegant but very skimpy. Only Shefaly wears some traditional sjalwaar chamise, off and on. In the hospital where Aisha visits her sister who gave birth, we notice how short a dress Aisha wears, as the camera catches her panties. The women are young but at times appear disturbingly like pre-teenagers, children really, even sitting in a dollhouse. Perhaps this is a pointed reference to Austen's fierce feminist criticism of how society looks at women? We also see Aisha standing outside the hospital in her short dress with two fully dressed Indian ladies in the background. As if Aisha escaped the movie set, to symbolise how detached she has become from reality.

The personal struggle Aisha has to face when she realises how lost she is, is symbolised by her binging on desserts and Häagen-Dazs ice cream. She then applies for a job which means quitting Delhi, like Aarti/ Jane Fairfax, but is saved from this somehow wretched fate by Arjun who finally states his love for her. They had loved each other for a long time but did not think themselves worthy. She was distracted by her projects and was not really thinking. He because he watched her mainly to find fault and keep her from harm.

The question is: does the movie convince on its own merits? Perhaps the story needed to be watered down, because we live in more complicated but less trying times. There is less a climate of change and uncertainty, then when Emma was written. We are however never more in need of a global revolution, to eradicate the last vestiges of colonialism. India has fully outgrown its status as a former British colony and matches or even exceeds anything perceived as western and forward. An Indian producer can even do a better Emma adaptation then a western filmmaker and sets a hard act to follow. The choice was made to take the major incidents from Emma out of context and give them another, less dire meaning. The ill-judged, untimely and unforeseen marriage proposal by Mr. Elton is an error of manners and high comedy, but becomes in Aisha an ironical joke about sexual harassment. Without understanding of the underlying story about revolution and change, a full strength presentation would have been too long, complicated and bewildering with the many twists, to a movie audience. Austen's contemporary readers would readily understand her references to the outside world, while we would first need a long history lesson.

It's a very satisfying movie because of the visual spectacle it offers, as we may expect from any Indian movie. There is some alluring, but functional dancing and singing, that don't put the plot on hold. All in keeping with the novel, too. The characters have the unusual appearance of purpose, although we have no clue where all this leads. So this movie version is a string of unrelated incidents, which yet give some measure of gravity to the characters; but only the final denouement is what really ties them together. This can also be said of the book version, which keeps us guessing with its many false leads. Aisha has given clues of little jealousies toward Arjun and Aatri, Knightley and Jane Fairfax, but nothing major. And towards the end she agonises because she thinks that Arjun and Shewaly are united, while they are not. All the while Arjun is like a big brother, all about solicitude and criticism. Yet from these disparate feelings, intensified by the incidents; love grows. It's because of this strange story, told with great and unfaltering authority, we are forced to ask; what is the story Miss Austen really wants to tell us?

How would I go about making a movie adaptation of Emma? It would have to be a two-tiered affair; two stories, simultaneously told. An overpoweringly, romantic one with magnified bucolic charms and a fairy tale like air, commenting on itself. And a totally newly created, relentless and harsh story of civil war and terror, set around the French revolution, with the same players, doubling. The themes would be the corruption, inherent to class and rank without true personal merit. Upsetting the natural order by elevating a conquered people. And imposing equality on two disparate nations, which goes against historical truth. Both storylines singing the praise of decency and benevolence, a true love of humanity under pressure. These war-like themes would find their counterpart in her indolence and the race-mixing practises Emma indulges in. It has to be historical because of the central role of rank and class, which are alien to us today. The players would have to be as Austen decreed. Mr. Elton, spruce, black and smiling. Jane Fairfax would be a light skinned Black and Jane Fairfax; a blue eyed blond. While Emma and Frank, who used to tease her for her paleness would indeed be extremely dark skinned, like all the characters from Paradise by Toni Morrison. As would Mr. Weston and his wife. Mr. Knightley; and Mrs. Augusta Elton are Blacks, for she soon dethrones Emma to become a vigorous surrogate but vulgar replacement. Gentleman farmer Martin, the proper partner for Miss Smith who really loves her, is off course white.