Documentary films are evolving, and the use of actors to bring story elements to life is becoming more common. While some purists may view this technique with skepticism, it has been used to great effect in films like Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine and Procession, Kitty Green’s Casting JonBenet, and Errol Morris’ Wormwood and The Thin Blue Line. However, it is in Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa) that this technique reaches a new level of artistry and relevance.
The film tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her two eldest daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, who disappeared from their family home as teenagers after becoming attached to radical Islamist ideology. The director cast actresses to play the three women, while the real Olfa and her two youngest daughters appear throughout the film. The use of actors is not meant to cover up an absence of archival video, but rather to explore the grief of a mother and two daughters who have lost two loved ones.
Olfa is a charismatic figure who grew up in a pre-Arab Spring Tunisia where Western dress was enforced, but patriarchal domination was still a reality. She fought back, even undertaking weight training to have the physical force to contend with men. In one startling reenactment, the actress playing Olfa is seen on her wedding night, where her new husband essentially attempts to rape her. Olfa fights back and takes a sheet to wipe up his wounds, showing the red-stained fabric to her sister as evidence of the consummation.
Olfa’s strength of character and independence of mind are evident throughout the film, but she also absorbed the conservative, male-oriented point of view that innocent girls are but one misstep away from becoming “whores.” This fear weighed heavily on Olfa and her daughters, and eventually, Rahma and Ghofrane followed a growing Islamist movement in Tunisia by draping themselves in the niqab. They became more extreme than even their peers, with Ghofrane swearing allegiance to ISIS and Rahma later doing the same.
Four Daughters is a powerful film about a mother coming to terms with the dangerous right turn taken by her daughters and realizing her own role in their downfall. The use of actors to portray moments from their lives has given her clarity and perhaps a small measure of solace. The film is one of two documentaries to earn a spot in competition at Cannes, and if it should earn the Palme d’Or, it would be a deserving winner.
