FOUR DAUGHTERS, Kaouther Ben Hania / Sisters bond in Islamism's shadow (2023)

THIS WEEK'S ONLINE FILM: This riveting exploration of rebellion, memory, and sisterhood reconstructs the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, unpacking a complex family history through intimate interviews and performance to examine how the Tunisian woman's two eldest were radicalized by Islamic extremists. Casting professional actresses as the missing daughters, director Kaouther Ben Hania restages pivotal moments in the family's life. These scenes are interwoven with confessions and reflections from Olfa and her younger daughters; the women tell their own stories and brimg back moments of joy, loss, violence, and heartache.

Directed and written by: Kaouther Ben Hania
Cinematography: Farouk Laaridh
Editors: Kaouther Ben Hania, Qutaiba Barhamji, and Jean-Christophe Hym
Music: Amine Bouhafa
Primary country of origin: Tunisia
Language: Arabic
Release date: 19 May 2023 (Cannes), 27 September 2023 (U.S.)
Running time: 1h 47m

HOW THIS WORKS
To find out where to rent Four Daughters online, visit JustWatch.com. View it on your own during the week, then join us for our Saturday night Zoom conversation March 30. A Zoom link will appear to the right of your screen once you RSVP. (NOTE: If you can’t get that link to work, copy and paste it into the search bar of your browser.

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Seen from one point of view, Four Daughters is a chamber piece: three-plue-two members of one family celebrating and thrashing out their relationships. Seen from another, this beyond-unique film offers a promontory overlooking recent Tunisian history and that of the Arab world. As everywhere, the personal is political, but to a degree Westerners can scarcely begin to imagine. When "coming of age" means not only sexual awakening and breaking free of parental authority but also entering into the most intimate possible union with a fundamentalist terrorist non-state, we're encountering another genre altogether, perhaps one never before presented.

The events depicted take place after the Tunisian Revolution that ousted longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 during the Arab Spring. These women's stories are many-layered and overlapping, folding back on each other in ways that evoke a hall of mirrors or a dish constructed of phyllo dough. None of them comes across fully formed; all confirm the truth that histories and events compose us as much as we do ourselves. We recognize how quicksilver our own stories are – how malleable, how subject to fate. That the fate of Olfa and her four remains open-ended at the movie's end befits us too, leaves us wondering what forces will push in on our lives and how we will respond – a sobering experience.

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TRAILER, RATINGS, EXTRA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUsu78a5phM

Rotten Tomatoes: 96% of 79 reviews
Metacritic: 80/100 (generally favorable) based on 21 reviews

Four Daughters garnered these Best Documentary awards in 2023: the Independent Spirit Awards, the Chicago International Film Festival, France's César Awards, and most impressively the L'œl d'Or (Golden Eye) at Cannes. It was selected as the Tunisian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

BLURBS & ATTITUDES
There is no villainization, only the considerate narrative care to portray each of the women as whole people, driven to varying degrees of severance from the family principles by various authorities ... As Olfa and the sisters give perspective on their shared trauma and heartbreak, what ensues is not simply the story of a family but a tour de force examination of women’s place in the world and the costs of how they choose to cope with it. ∞ Peyton Robinson, RogerEbert.com

An enthralling narrative about memory, motherhood, and the inherited traumas of a patriarchal society ... It’s during the moments where Olfa, Eya and Tayssir must face themselves that Four Daughters becomes utterly transfixing, moving from an observational process documentary to an exhilarating confrontation between truth and performance, past and present. There’s a tenderness to the whole enterprise, too ... it's radical in its honesty and courage. ∞ Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

With so many moving parts, it’s hard to isolate just one reason why Ben Hania’s film ... should prove so gripping. Perhaps it’s the way it reveals Olfa as both sympathetic and repellent, charming and chilling. Perhaps it’s simply that we’re not used to seeing this overtly experimental an approach applied to a story about the daily struggles of Arab women in a majority-Islamic North African country. Or perhaps it’s that its structuring absences, and their motivations, remain so elusive. Whatever cathartic truths Four Daughters uncovers, others will always remain veiled. ∞ Jessica Kiang, Variety