There’s a particular kind of silence that comes with loneliness—a silence that isn’t empty but heavy,dragging behind you like a shadow. Aisha is a film about that silence.It’s a story that refuses comfort, where even moments of beauty are lined with the weight of a life
half-lived, half-seen. Aya, our protagonist, walks through her world like a ghost before she’s ever declared
one. She cleans rooms no one notices, cooks food no one appreciates, and sits at tables where her voice
doesn’t carry.
Loneliness is both her existence and her fate—until she shatters the narrative, burning herself into
someone new.
Aya’s story unfolds in fragments, as if her life were a cracked mirror reflecting pieces of herself. It starts
small: a smile she forces for hotel visitors, a tip tossed her way by a performative influencer, a colleague’s
stew she rejects.
These moments barely register in the grand scheme of the plot, but they matter. Aya is a film that lingers
on insignificance, reminding us that loneliness isn’t a spectacular drama. It’s banal. It’s the ache of going
unnoticed while still being burdened by expectation.
At home, Aya’s loneliness transforms into something sharper: solitude. Her old-fashioned house feels like
a relic, her silence a choice rather than consequence. Her mother scolds her for buying a jacket—a single
indulgence, a whisper of self-love in a life spent serving others.
Aya pays their bills, peels vegetables in the kitchen, and listens as her parents demand that she marry.
Marriage, to them, is not a bond but a transaction. Their daughter is a means to pay debts, a piece of
property to alleviate poverty. Aya, already unseen as a person, is now diminished as a daughter. It is here,
in these still, quiet scenes, that the film makes its most devastating point: solitude is not simply being
alone. It is being invisible in the presence of others.
But then, Aya dies. Or at least, she ceases to be the Aya she once was.
The bus crash feels like a baptism by fire. In one of the film’s most striking visuals, Aya crawls from the
wreckage, surrounded by flames and the echo of sirens. To survive such a violent accident is an act of
rebirth, though the film isn’t naive enough to present it as redemption.
Aya’s first act after surviving is to steal. For a woman whose life was defined by servitude, this theft feels
symbolic—a reclaiming of agency, no matter how small or immoral. She checks into a hotel, experiences
it as a guest, and smiles. It’s a moment of simple, radical pleasure, made all the more powerful because
it’s fleeting.
Aya’s happiest moments in the film are not shared with others but exist in solitude. She eats ice cream on
her own, savoring the sweetness of something that feels indulgent and hers. She takes a boat, drifting on
open water, free for just a while from the burdens of expectation. These are not grand, life-changingscenes, but they are significant because Aya’s happiness exists purely for herself. They are reminders that
solitude, unlike loneliness, can be a form of liberation. The world around her still looms, but in those
fleeting moments, it has no hold on her.
What follows is a descent into a life Aya never had the chance to live. She drinks wine by the sea, dances
in nightclubs, gets into fights, and forms fleeting connections with strangers. It’s messy and reckless, a
spiral that seems both liberating and destructive.
Loneliness doesn’t vanish here; it takes on a different shape. Even in crowds, Aya remains adrift, still
haunted by the void within her. But there’s a difference between the loneliness of living as a ghost and the solitude of living for yourself. The former is a prison; the latter, a dangerous kind of freedom.
Aya’s journey is one of fractured identities. She’s a hotel worker, a survivor, a thief, and eventually, a
stand-in for someone else’s tragedy. When she’s confronted with the possibility of testifying as “Aisha,” a
girl lost for seven years, Aya embraces her ghostly existence.
This is her final act of rebellion: to erase herself entirely and live through a name that isn’t hers. It’s here
that Aya’s loneliness becomes absolute. She chooses to become invisible once again, but this time, on her
own terms. If the world refused to see her for who she was, then she will give it someone else to look at.
The film’s emotional climax comes not with the resolution of Aya’s conflict but with a single, human
gesture. Her father—a figure of silence and scorn—finally speaks.
He hugs his daughter, breaking through years of alienation with an embrace that is almost unbearable in
its tenderness. For a moment, Aya is no longer alone. But it’s too late to undo what has been done. Aya
has already slipped into the cracks of the narrative, becoming someone else’s ghost, someone else’s
savior.
During debates I had with others about the film, some saw the movie as degrading to women. But this
reading misses the point entirely. It is not degrading; it is devastating. It’s a mirror held up to the structures that strip women of their agency and humanity, revealing how society erases them through
expectation and neglect.
Aya’s journey isn’t one of humiliation but of resistance. Even in her lowest moments, she fights to exist
on her own terms, no matter how flawed or painful that existence may be.
What makes Aisha resonate so deeply is its refusal to romanticize loneliness or offer easy answers. It’s a
film about a woman trapped between two worlds: the one she’s forced to endure and the one she tries to
escape. Aya’s solitude is not heroic, nor is it tragic; it simply is. By the end of the film, Aya has
disappeared, but she hasn’t been erased. Her absence leaves a mark—a reminder of what happens when a
life is denied its fullness.
Loneliness is often about context. The same silence that feels peaceful on a mountain feels unbearable in
a crowded room. It is a film that shifts that context constantly, placing its protagonist in spaces where hersolitude either swallows her whole or gives her room to breathe. It is a haunting story, but not without
hope. After all, Aya does what ghosts do best: she lingers. And in lingering, she is finally seen.
adem lazreg
