This astounding, sometimes distressing and often humorous documentary hints at what we’re in for from its opening voice-over: mother-of-four Olfa’s two youngest daughters still live with her, we are told, but, “The two eldest were devoured by the wolf.”
As we learn the tragedy that befell Rahma and Ghofrane, we enter a tight-knit family of captivating Tunisian women whose lives have been torn apart by societal repression, domestic abuse and the radicalisation of two sisters by religious dogma.
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s extraordinary film was a worthy contender for the 2024 Best Documentary Oscar (won by 20 Days in Mariupol), not just because of its compelling story and charismatic subjects, but also for its innovative fusion of traditional doco techniques with recreations of a most unusual kind.
In a method similar to 2012′s The Act of Killing (in which Indonesian death squad killers proudly re-enacted their gruesome crimes for American film-maker Joshua Oppenheimer), Ben Hania has her cast act out key moments in the family’s story.
Two of the daughters, Eya and Tayssir, are still around to tell their side, and the participation of these bright, beautiful, strong-willed girls, alongside their guileless and gutsy mother Olfa, is breathtaking. But in the absence of their big sisters, Ben Hania brings in professional actresses to play Rahma and Ghofrane.
When the “sisters” are introduced for the first time, the family’s evident delight at the uncanny casting is dampened by the digging up of painful emotions. As young Eya tearfully explains down the lens, she has not spoken her big sisters’ names in over a decade, so deep is the trauma of their disappearance.
Which prompts ethical questions about Four Daughters: it might feel like this exercise in reliving the past risks retraumatising women who have fought to overcome violence and sexual abuse.
But it is soon apparent that this method might provide catharsis, too. Certainly, matriarch Olfa is a big character who can look after herself. Having learnt as a child how to fight and protect her own family of females from unwelcome male advances, here we see her advising the actress cast about how she beat up her new husband (in self-defence) on their wedding night.
While the cultural specificity of growing up in post-revolution Tunisia provides a fascinating history lesson about women’s choice to wear the hijab, Four Daughters also has a sadly universal narrative. The candid interviews imply that Olfa only knows how to raise her daughters (whom she often shames as “whores”) the way she herself was brought up. “It’s a curse” is how she describes what we now understand to be intergenerational trauma.
Trigger warnings may be needed for some viewers, but this stunning film is brave, compelling and worth its weight in documentary gold.
Rating out of 5: ★★★★★
Four Daughters directed by Kaouther Ben Hania is in cinemas now.
