Farha is a 2021 Palestinian film directed by Darin Sallam that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. It is significant to understand the depiction of the film through a feminist lens to acknowledge a Palestinian girl’s struggle to obtain a formal education amid the 1948 Catastrophe or Nakba.
The film revolves around the true story of a girl named Radiyyeh who experiences the brunt of Al-Nakba that shatter her dreams. It is believed that she lost her father to the events, whom she could not find. The picturisation is understood as merely portraying the 1948 catastrophe. To be precise, it also depicts societal expectations for girls.
The film highlights well-embedded societal norms; it poses a challenge to debates and discussion on Palestine, where there is no mention of the segregation that is maintained along gender lines. It also depicts the changing political order as a result of Israeli settler colonialism and the mass displacement of Palestinians.
The girl named Farha belongs to a village where she is passionate about educating herself to challenge societal norms. There is not even a single school for girls, only for boys; she wants people to recognise this scantiness. She has a teacher who teaches her the Quran, but not its foundations to provide people with a formal education. According to him, education is confined to the Quran, and there is nothing else beyond it to learn. In the patriarchal domain, this notion only prohibits girls from going to school, not boys. In short, there is the prevalence of the patriarchal system along with the gendered division, resulting in a hypocritical setup.
In the film, education is seen as making girls go against the fixed social system; the system is deemed natural. The eagerness is shown to conduct girls’ weddings as if getting married is the only purpose of being a girl. On the one hand, women and girls manage the household. On the other hand, men discuss politics and fight against Zionist forces.
The film underscores gender-based segregation in Palestine
The film opens with gender-based segregation in Palestine. The segregation remains acceptable among people, but not to Farha who takes a stance to receive an education. It is expected of girls to read and learn the Quran, and not to go beyond it. The confinement is laid out to control their agency. Farha challenges this limitation and tries to get rid of it by convincing her father to allow to send her to the city for school education. It is worth noting that it has been more than 70 years since Israeli forces colonised the land; the issue of gendered division is still not a concern.
Although there are Palestinian feminists and Women’s rights activists focused on women’s rights and their suppression in Palestine, for instance, Fadwa Tuqan was a Palestinian poet who talked about the position of women in the 1920s and 1930s, and they suffered educational and cultural fallout. The film is a mirror reflection of the same. Palestinian society and colonial forces halt Farha from fulfilling her dream of getting admission at a school. It is true to a great extent that settler colonialism abused girls and women. There is no doubt that colonialism is patriarchal in nature, and works against women. To be concise, within Palestinian society, girls and women are bound to adhere to societal norms.
An article on Al Jazeera titled “How Israel is Being Absolved of Palestinian Women’s Rights Abuse,” where it is mentioned that women have faced depoliticisation since the Oslo Accords. Since the Israeli state came into existence in 1948, gendered oppression has been used against women, including those who remained political. But it is important to note that girls and women struggle to challenge the patriarchal system on the one hand. On the other hand, they have to bear gendered violence from the colonial state.
The most important thing to notice in the film is that Sallam’s camera is kept fixed on Farha’s face to witness the political transformation she underwent. Although the mass displacement of Palestinians is not portrayed in detail, their helplessness is shown from the perspective of a 14-year-old girl, Farha, who is locked up in a storage room where she suffers hardships and witnesses violence against people, including children, through a peephole.
Farha highlights the British participation in the establishment of the Israel
The film does not deal with the detailed political transformation as a result of the establishment of the Israel in Palestine. It rather deals with the impact of political fallout on a village in Palestine. The film depicts the British involvement in colonising the land and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.
While discussing the Zionist ideology and its colonial motives, the British involvement is overlooked. In the aftermath of the First World War, the British took control of Palestine, which was located in the Ottoman empire. In the Balfour Declaration, the British promised to help Zionists establish their homeland in Palestine. In subsequent times, Palestinians fought against British coercion; its glimpse is even shown in the film when Farha along with her friend Farida who seem to criticise the British troops and ask them to leave their land.
Al-Nakba or The Catastrophe in 1948 meant the mass destruction brought to Palestinian society and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes opened the door to the creation of the Israeli state. Even though this film does not have a good number of characters, it gives us insight through a glimpse into people witnessing one of the events of Al-Nakba. At one point, Farha’s father is shown talking to a man about poorly equipped fighters against Israeli forces.
Palestinians fall victim to the establishment of the Israel
Furthermore, Farha remains insightful about Palestinians falling victim to the establishment of the Israeli state, through the perspective of the young woman Farha. In the storage room where her father locks her up, and she desperately waits for him to return; she hears the sound of machine guns behind the closed door. The machine guns are used to force Palestinians to leave their homes or kill them. Apparently, it is a part of the creation of the Israel.
In the midst of this, it is worth noting that she tries to secure her passion for reading a book in the closed storage room until a lantern descends into darkness.
It is veracious to write that Al-Nakba not only dispossessed Palestinians of their homes, but also shattered millions of dreams and aspirations. Farha, or Radiyyeh, is one of them who lost their dreams to the catastrophe.
The film Farha was released on Netflix in 2022, and as a result, the Israeli government condemned it. Israeli officials denied the events of Al-Nakba. Despite the fact that this film is a mild representation of the intense violence that happened to Palestinians back then, Israeli officials claimed that this film was made to ‘incite against Israeli soldiers.’
About the author(s)
As a student of history at the University of Delhi, Nashra Rehman is always elated to share
her understanding of Gender History and an interlink between past and present. She is highly
passionate to inculcate in awakening minds pertaining to “How and Why women are
marginalised” through her publications.
