The central theme of a film based on a novel “Scorched"

 This paper is about the central theme of a film based on a novel, with the play entitled as “Scorched and the film “ Incendies ”. Although written by the different authors, the two works depict interconnectedness in their plots and the atmosphere that recurs in both is almost similar. In fact, the film, Incendies seems to borrow a lot from the play, Scorched especially on a thematic basis which depicts it as an adaptation of the play to make the film (Meerzon, 2013). Notably, the theme which is central in both works is war and love which features throughout the play and the film focusing on a section of the gruesome actualities that have been witnessed in recent history. Nevertheless, there are slight differences in the setting and other aspects that separate the two works. 

Written by Denis Villeneuve, the film Incendies is set in the modern day times. On the other hand, the play is written by Wajdi Mouawad in an ancient setting. This setting is different in that, it is set in an anonymous country that has similar characteristics to Lebanon and other war-torn countries of the Middle East in ancient times. The mention of Lebanon depicts a major similarity in the two works; civil wars and unrest in the recent history (Holstun, 2015). The other important aspect is the mention of the Middle East as being the major point of reference in the issue of civil war. From the beginning, the reader/ viewer is able to discern the existence of civil unrest in the two works. As a result, migrations of women and children from the war-torn areas are notable. Refugee camps are also a major component of the play and the film respectively from where major events occur. 

The plot in the play begins with the birth of Nawal Maran, who is a Muslim girl born in a refugee camp. As she reaches fourteen years of age, Nawal falls in love with a boy in the refugee camp by the name Wahab. As a result of their relationship, Nawal gets pregnant. This makes the people in the camp to send Wahab away from the camp. On her part, the mother of Nawal tells her to choose between two choices; either to abandon her family forever and keep the baby or surrender the baby for orphanage care (Mouawad, 2010). Nawal chooses to surrender her baby and puts a mark of identity on him; a nose of a clown and swears to return back and reunite with her baby. The midwife takes the born male child to an orphanage from which he is later transferred to another orphanage. 

Later on, in the continuity of the civil war, the army of the resistance movement from the south that was headed by Chamseddine and being allies of the refugees arrives at the picture. They engage in the process of emptying the orphanage where the child of Nawal is given to Harmanni and his wife who name the child as Nihad (Mouawad, 2010). When Nihad has grown up, he joins the Chamseddine resistance militia where he assumes the role of a sniper. After a short period with the militia, Nawal goes on a mission to look for his mother. It is during this quest that he gets captured by a rival army who make him as one of their own (Mouawad, 2010). 

At the same time, Nazira who is the grandmother of Nawal and whom she had been living with urges Nawal to leave the village as it was harbored by poverty and illiteracy and seek education in the city. Nawal complies and learns reading and writing skills. She returns later aged nineteen and on finding her grandmother already dead, she gives her last respect by engraving Nazira’s name on the headstone of her grave (Mouawad, 2010). On accomplishing the engravings, Nawal sets to leave where she gets company from Sawda who had been in the same camp with Wahab. Together, they set on a mission to find the son of Nawal by enquiring from the two orphanages. They learn from a doctor that the orphans had been dispersed by the refugees (Meerzon, 2013). This forces the two ladies to separate where Nawal boards a bus headed to the neighboring refugee camp with hope of finding her son. Along the way, militia men hit on the bus causing deaths of everyone on board except Nawal. 

Nawal and Sawda are enjoined in the play where both are aged forty years (Meerzon, 2013). This was after Nawal had worked for a newspaper company that later got wrecked by the civil war. As the two ladies are progressing with their journey, they encounter a militia man on the road who threatens them. This drives Sawda to killing him justifying it on the many atrocities that the militia had meted on her camp (Mouawad, 2010). She tell of the killings that were perpetrated by the militia in her camp and the hidden agenda that she ha of avenging the deaths of the families. Nawal comes up with a proposal of killing the leader of the militia group who was named Chad. Shortly afterwards, the two ladies separate once again. 

As she is proceeding alone, Nawal kills Chad by shooting him. She gets caught by the militia who take her to prison at a place called Kfar Rayat (Mouawad, 2010). It is at this prison that the son of Nawal, Nihad Harmanni who is also known as Abou Terek is operating as in charge of guarding and conducting torture on prisoners. However, since none of them could recognize the other, Abou Terek rapes Nawal resulting to pregnancy. At the age of forty five years, Nawal delivers twins. The twins are put in care of a peasant who brings them up with the names of Sarwane and Jaannaan (Meerzon, 2013). The children are handed over to their mother when she completes her term in prison. Nawal and her twin children embark on a journey of emigration to Montreal. On arrival, Nawal gets employed to be Alphonse’s secretary who works as a notary. When she is at the age of sixty, Nawal tells a tribunal on war crimes about the years she spent in prison. 

Coincidentally, Abou Terek also happens to be in Montreal where he gives a testimony of his crimes when he worked as a guard in the prison and also makes mention of the nose of a clown. On seeing and hearing him, Nawal is able to recognize him as her long lost son and as the man who had raped her in prison (Meerzon, 2013). The shock that came with this realization causes her to become dumbfounded during her last five years of life. She gets afflicted by a stroke that a sympathetic nurse is able to attribute to her silence that could be compared to midnight silence. Eventually, Nawal passes on having left the twins being over twenty years old. One of the twins, Simon, has already become a boxer while the other twin is a graduate mathematician. 

In preparing for burial, Alphonse makes known to the twins of their mother’s will to be buried with her face on the ground and no headstone was to be put on her grave unless they fulfilled certain requirements (Meerzon, 2013). Alphonse then proceeds to give Janine a letter that had been sealed outlining whom their father was while he gives Simon the letter outlining about their unknown brother. Simon reacts negatively and in rebellion to the extent of cursing his mother while Janine makes effort of meeting the nurse who was in charge of their mother. The nurse gives him the silent tapes and he sets off to the native home of Nawal to look for her father. When she arrives there, she gets informed of her mother’s departure and journey to Kfar Rayat. She visits the museum of the prison where the guide outlines the experience of Nawal and also makes mention of a guard who used to work in that prison. The guide then narrates to her of the murder of Chad by Nawal and the consequent rape when brought to the prison (Mouawad, 2010). He continues to outline that Nawal delivered twins while in prison who were brought up by a peasant. The peasant accounts that she gave back the children to Nawal when her jail term was over. 

In the meantime, Simon travels with Alphonse to Nawal’s native country. On arrival, they are able to meet Chamseddine, Chemseddine explains to Simon that Nihad, his brother was also his father and is also known as Abou Terek who was residing in Canada as an asylum seeker (Mouawad, 2010). Simon makes this information known to Janine where together, they ensure that their letters get delivered to Abou Terek. They also read Nawal’s final letter to them bringing an end to the play. 

On the other hand, Incendies, as is the name of the film fields same names of characters as those depicted in the play with only slight changes. The film takes a flashback experience where the death of Nawal appears first (Holstun, 2015). It is then revealed that she had written a will through a notary by the name Jean Lebel who was a friend of Nawal’s. In the will, Nawal has clearly outlined that her twins namely Simon and Jeanne should deny her a coffin and a gravestone if they failed in tracking down their long lost brother of whom they lived in complete oblivion. They were also to track down their father whom they believed had passed on. 

From the many flashbacks, the viewer gets to know that Nawal jailed from a both Arab and Christian family and that she lived in an anonymous country in the Middle East. Her falling in love with a refugee of Palestine origin and her resulting pregnancy are also depicted. As the storyline unfolds, the family of Nawal realizes her pregnancy and kills her Palestinian lover as a form of honor killing. Nawal’s grandmother spares her, giving her a chance to tattoo her child and leave without the child headed to Daresh, a fictional city (Holstun, 2015). The child is taken to an orphanage in Kfar Khout where he is to stay till she came back for him. While at Daresh, she enrolls at a local school where she starts learning how to read and write. As she is in school, an outbreak of civil war occurs with the Christian nationalists attacking the refugees and the Muslim students. Nawal takes a stand of opposing the war on the grounds of human rights. 

In the meantime, the orphanage where her son resides in Kfar Khout gets destroyed by the nationalists. Unknown to her is the fact that her son gets sanctuary in the hands of a Muslim warlord by the name of Chamseddine who turns him into a child soldier in the Islamic religion. Nawal takes on a false identity as a Muslim woman and boards a bus that ferried other fleeing Muslims to the neighboring refugee camp where she believes that her child had been moved to. Along the journey, the bus gets attacked by Christians who are armed to the teeth (Meerzon, 2013). Nawal together with another Muslim woman who had a daughter manage to survive the attack and descend from the bus. Their attackers then cover spray the bus with gasoline and torch it right before their eyes. It is through showing a cross that Nawal escapes death as it displays her to be one with them. 

However, her fellow woman is not so lucky and gets killed. To save the daughter, Nawal pretends that the daughter was her own and not the other woman’s child. Nevertheless, the daughter betrays her efforts by running towards the bus, getting shot dead in the process. This makes Nawal to become aggressive in looking for her son. When Nawal learns of the loss of her son, she becomes a member of the Muslim fighters. She assumes the role of a tutor to the Christian leaders only as an undercover mission (Holstun, 2015). In the process, she kills a leader of the nationalists by shooting him. Later, Nawal gets arrested and is imprisoned at the Kfar Ryat prison for killing the leader of the nationalists. She gets fifteen years of imprisonment bearing an inmate number seventy two. In the prison, she demonstrates an invincible spirit by remaining resolute to her cause. She even goes ahead to sing in the prison, something that made her to be known as the singing woman. It is in this prison that she gets raped by a man named Abou Tareq who is also a torturer at the prison. This rapes results to a pregnancy which on full term brings froth twin infants. 

Jeanne sets on a mission to Nawal’s native country where she seeks to unveil her mother’s past. The first part of the mission involves finding her mother’s family, which to her is the extended family. The people she encounters refuse to talk to her as they resent her mother due to the shame they believe her mother brought to the family. Jeanne leaves her extended family and is lucky to discover the prison where her mother had been held. On interacting with a former employee of the prison, she is made aware that her mother got tortured in the prison. It is also revealed to her of the rape ordeal that her mother underwent resulting in the birth of twins while still in prison (Meerzon, 2013). This former guard continues in his generosity and aids her with details of the midwife who took charge of her mother’s delivery. 

From this bulk of information, she convinces Simon who is showing resentment towards their mother’s unique personality to become part of the mission. On arriving, Simon comes together with Lebel, a former employer of their mother. As a team, they manage to locate the nurse who was in charge of their mother’s delivery. The nurse tells them that Nawal gave birth to twins by the name Jaanan and Sarwan whom she took care of until Nawal got released from prison (Holstun, 2015).The two obtain the help of Lebel who proves essential in uncovering the hidden mysterious past about their mother, their lost brother and their unknown father. As the story continues, the trio is able to find out that their brother had the name Nihad of May. They look for Chamseddine whom they believe could direct them to their long lost brother. 

Simon gets lucky enough to meet Chamseddine personally where Chemseddine reveals that Nihad got captured by the nationalists. He also unveils that Nihad joined the nationalist’s army where he was given the name Abou Tareq (Meerzon, 2013). This revelation makes Simon to realize that Abou Tareq was both his brother and his father as well. On further communication, Simon gets to know that Abou Tareq had managed a successful immigration to Canada. It was at a swimming pool in Canada that Nawal had been able to recognize the true identity of Nihad after noting the tattoo she had made on him while still an infant. 

The twins then embark on a mission of finding Nihad in Canada. On finding him, the twins hand him the letters without making any other communication with Nihad. Consequently, the twins get Nawal a gravestone for having fulfilled their promise. It is later revealed that Nawal had noted the man with a tattooed heel at a swimming pool (Holstun, 2015).On taking a closer look, she is able to discern that the same man had been the rapist at the prison. The shock of the true reality that it was indeed her son who had tortured and raped her causes her to succumb to stroke. However, she instructed her employer on the letters and the instructions to her twins on how they were to come up with the truth all by themselves. Later, when Nihad reads the letters and comes to his senses, realizing the evil that he had done goes to visit Nawal’s grave feeling remorseful for having treated her that way. 

Significant differences that crop include the failure of the film, Incendies to make specific mention to either of the sides that were engaged in the civil war of Lebanon. It turns away the focus from effects of civil war to the importance of keeping promises as depicted by the huge focus on the twins’ efforts of keeping their promise to their mother. It is also about maintaining humanity in an otherwise demanding situation as shown through Nawal’s stand in school against the civil war that had broken out. The lack of analyzing the political motives behind the play, Scorched causes a significant disparity in taste of the incendies. By avoiding the obvious motif in the play, the film comes up with a rather shallow outline of the role of politics in civil wars in engineering social evils (Holstun, 2015)... 

Despite the evident differences, the two works; the play and the film are similar in consistent victims and consistent perpetrators of evil. The blend between male and female hardships in relationships and identities also comes through as a major similarity. Additionally, allusion to religious beliefs as a playing a central role in the civil war is consistently depicted in both the play and the film. The depiction of poverty throughout shows it to be a major contributor to the violence that is evident in the play and the film. The importance of education is emphasized as a means of economic emancipation. Learning to read and write is depicted as a crucial element that lacked in the society and those who got it were able to rise above poverty. Their thinking was also largely enhanced. Together, the film and the book fail to mention the war-torn countries and only give a hint of the region where the unfortunate incidences were occurring (Holstun, 2015). The battles involving resistance groups facing the conforming group depict the role of political differences in causing huge detrimental impacts on the common people living in the land. 

The significance of the differences and similarities bring out the aspects of adapting a play that need to be considered. In large part, the film maintains the names and roles of characters. For instance, the main character is Nawal, who is unchanged in both the film and the play. The errant son maintains his last name as Abou Tareq though having different names in the course of the story. Other important characters in the storyline such as the twins and the warlord maintain similar names both in the play and in the film. This depicts the prowess needed in adopting plays into films. 

In conclusion, the theme of love and war is outlined throughout the play and the film. Through the love for her child, Nawal is determined to go through difficulties and get him back. However, her son does not recognize her and becomes on of the worst oppressors that Nawal had ever met. However, on realizing his mistakes, the errant son comes back to his senses and visits his mother’s grave in complete remorse. Although specific differences appear between the play and the film, the sequence of events can be predicted in one after watching the other. 

References; 

Holstun, J. (2015). Antigone Becomes Jocasta: Soha Bechara, Résistante, and Incendies. Mediations, 29(1). 

Meerzon, Y. (2013). Staging Memory in Wajdi Mouawad's Incendies: Archaeological Site or Poetic Venue?. Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches théâtrales au Canada , 34(1). 

Mouawad, W. (2010). Scorched . Playwrights Canada Press.