Written by: Ayesha Amir
Posted on: October 26, 2023 | 
| 中文
Omair Rana with her on-screen daughter, Noor, played by Tanisha Shameem
Noor (light) is a short film of merely seventeen minutes but a very profound message; a short film tackling the stigma around weak eyesight and consequently having to wear spectacles in a society so obsessed with a woman’s appearance. Through the intellectual prowess of Farah Usman’s writing and Umer Adil’s direction, Noor was able to win at the Cannes World Film Festival in the category for “Best Health Film”, in March 2023. In addition to an impactful storyline, it features a sterling cast, namely Sarwat Gilani, Omair Rana, Tanisha Shameem (the child star, as Noor), Mizna Waqas and Tasneem Ansari. It centers around a girl with weak eyesight, Noor, who is not allowed by her father to wear glasses until after she helps save her grandmother’s life.
Noor is happy wearing glasses
The story begins in a classroom where we see a kind teacher (Sarwat Gilani), helping her students learn. Noor is seen with a friend who seems to be helping her with her assignment, but we learn later that it is because Noor’s poor eyesight hinders her ability to see the blackboard clearly. The little boy, Noor’s friend, is wearing glasses. This juxtaposition of two friends, one with glasses and one without, symbolizes right in the beginning of the film the consequences of not letting a bright child reach their full potential due to a physical impairment, which can easily be rectified, but is hindered by the family’s ignorance or the society’s perception of what a girl should look like.
Noor with her friend in school
In the beginning of the scene where Noor reaches home, the camera cleverly closes on beautifully hand-painted handicraft items of décor around the house, a passion that Noor’s mother has lost due to her deteriorating eyesight. The scene is interrupted by the sudden distressed calls of the grandmother, who screams “Jabeen! Jabeen” (Noor’s mother) furiously. The cause of her distress is a faultily stitched button, which Jabeen couldn’t stitch properly due to her lack of clear eyesight. It is saddening to note that she is not allowed to wear glasses inside the house, both by her husband (played by Omair Rana), as well as her mother-in-law. The forbidden nature of it is most apparent when Jabeen is clearly fearful of being seen wearing glasses when her husband returns, and she rushes to take them off.
A scene that very beautifully captures all of the film’s themes at once, is where the family of four gather to have dinner. The bandage on Jabeen’s thumb insinuates that she does not wear her glasses while doing chores, and it has caused her pain and discomfort. By showing this, the film subtly catches on the consequences of not wearing glasses when in need. Further, and most notably, the grandmother’s condescending advice of having Jabeen taken to the Peer Sahab reflects a great number of our society’s disillusioned and misinformed notion of doctors not being the first choice for seeking cure. Inevitably Peer Sahab cannot “fix” Jabeen’s eyesight, and what adds to the irony of the situation is how the family’s reason for getting Jabeen’s eyesight “fixed” is not to help her, but that she doesn’t look “ugly.” The husband asks, “why do you want to look so ugly?” She counters that her glasses help her with her vision and prevent her eye sight from deteriorating further.
The family dinner scene
On top of this disheartening reflection on how our society views bespectacled women, we see another subtle commentary on the gendered dynamics of a marriage when the mother-in-law says, “she looks older than you (the husband) after wearing glasses,” implying that it is somehow wrong for women to look older than their husbands. A widely prevalent view in our society is that personal wellbeing should be sacrificed in order to keep their husband happy and satisfied.
Showing the importance of eye care, the film portrays Noor’s class teacher and her best classmate, as savior figures who help Noor to improve her self-esteem. After a welfare organization visits Noor’s school for a free eye check-up, she gets her own glasses. However, Noor has had to grow up seeing her mother entrenched in the injustice of lack of care, which ultimately comes to apply to herself when her father sees her wearing glasses, flies into a rage and breaks them. Noor happens to be making a poster for a competition in school when this happens. In that moment, the juxtaposition of her distraught self, holding the broken glasses, with that of the poster that shows a happy bespectacled girl, clearly symbolizes the Noor of current reality and the Noor of an ideal world.
Sarwat Gillani with Noor (Tanisha Shameem)
It is not until later that an emergency occurs, and Noor’s grandmother falls ill while Jabeen, who usually takes care of her, is not home. Just when Noor’s father is about to give the grandmother a medicine, Noor puts on her glasses amidst that frenzy and notices that the medicine has expired. It is this climactic scene that makes Noor’s father realize how wrong he was to withhold Noor’s right to proper eyecare, as the very thing he despised has saved his mother’s life.
Noor, played by Tanisha Shameem, with her on-screen grandmother
Ultimately, the father reflects on his actions, and gifts Jabeen a new pair of glasses. He then fixes Noor’s spectacles and gives those glasses to her in front of Noor’s classroom, an attempt at redeeming himself publicly and accepting his poor lack of judgment. He brings Noor’s poster in the nick of time, which very fondly reads, “transform your weakness into strength. Win every hurdle,” a lesson given to Noor by her teacher.
Sarwat Gillani in the film
In the light of the fact that this short film is a project by Sightsavers, an International NGO working for the welfare of visual impairment and preventative measures for avoidable blindness, it can be said that the film does an excellent job of depicting the stigma around wearing glasses, of the emotional and physical distresses caused by not benefiting from adequate eye care, as well as the steps that can be taken towards acknowledging and accepting that weak eyesight is not something to be ashamed of.
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