Egyptian Jane Eyre Cinema Adaptation

Rana Atef

On this day in history, Charlotte Bronte’s most celebrated work came out to the light in 1847. Regarded as one of the timeless classics, “Jane Eyre” has been adapted variously through the years. “Haza Al Ragol Ohob boh” (The Man I Love) is an amusing Egyptian cinema adaptation of the novel. Starring Magda, Yehia Shahin, and Zozo Nabil, the film was released in 1962. The script of the film was adapted and directed by Hassam Helmy Al Mohandes.

Beautifully, the film expresses the majority of the events, characters, and emotional shifts besides choosing good names equivalent to the ones in the novel, for example, “Adela” as an equivalent to “Adele.”

Another note is setting familiar social positions as “Bey” to let the audience understand the social norms of the main protagonist of the novel, “Mr. Rochester.”

The physical appearance of Magda in the Egyptian adaptation, Sabrin, in the film is widely different from Jane Eyre. According to Bronte, the heroine was always pale to reflect a sense of gothic mood, while Magda did not look pale through the film but she looked anxious and depressed.

The film succeeded in creating a harmony between the depressed mood of the home, and the beauty of the Egyptian nature, it also depicted the majority of the description of nature in the original text.

The most definitive point in the Egyptian adaption is replacing the issue of Mr. Rochester’s Caribbean wife. It is obvious; Egypt has no problem with the Caribbean culture, unlike the English one. The English created a negative stereotype of the Caribbean as well as the African. This issue in the movie was replaced by a Muslim religious view, the marriage of two sisters to one man.

This principle is prohibited in Islam which created an accepted reason for the dispute between Sabrin (Magda) and Mourad Bey (Yehia Shahin), and the insane lady in the house is his first wife is Sabrin’s sister!

The description of the setting is almost the same as the director of the film kept the forms of high-class house decorations, parties, clothes, and furniture.