How does one speak of losing not just one child, but two?
In Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania takes us into a family that has suffered such a loss—but not as we might think. She takes us back to see the family’s life before and after the loss. It is such an intimate telling of the story that one actor who was part of the filming asked to stop in mid scene. Four Daughters is Tunesia’s official entry for Best Foreign Feature consideration. It has been short listed in that category as well as Documentary Feature. It won the prize for best documentary at Cannes.
The film focuses on Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters. Olfa and her two younger daughters all tell and act out their own stories. Olfa tells us, “The two eldest were devoured by the wolf.” In the film, two actors play the parts of the elder daughters. For many scenes, an actor also fills in for Olfa because it might be too hard for her to act those scenes herself. (At times it makes for interesting visuals of the real Olfa watching her stand-in living her story.)
While the film is a family history, much of it is also built around the connection made between actors and the real people. Much of the telling of the history is done behind the scenes as the women bond with the actors who are becoming part of their family.
Olfa is struggling to raise her daughters, but she carries with her many of the traditions and mores that have led to her own oppression. She has in some ways broken away from that oppression, but she is also passing on those concepts to her daughters. When Arab Spring comes to Tunesia, it brings freedom into their lives, but it also brings conflict with the old ideas.
It is that world of conflicting ideas that becomes the catalyst for the two eldest daughters being radicalized, eventually leaving the family to join the Islamic State. Olfa and her two younger daughters grieve their loss almost as much as if they were actually dead.
This becomes in many ways a psychodrama as the women (and actors) act out a sometimes happy, sometimes painful history. The film creates a very intimate chronicle of these women’s lives. There is an emotional power that can almost become overwhelming.
Four Daughters is in limited release.
Photos courtesy of Kino Lorber.
