A disturbing story set in Tunisia

 

 In 2016, Olfa Hamrouni made news protesting against the Tunisian government for reasons I won’t disclose here so that viewers unfamiliar with the story can discover it in theaters.

  Besides, there's more to every story than a single sentence can contain, and director Kaouther Ben Hania finds enough nuance and background in Four Daughters to stock the pages of several novels.

 Ben Hania's quasi-documentary employs actors and recreates dramatic scenes, adopting the kind of meta approach that usually bothers me. Why not just tell the damn story? 

    Here,  though, the approach suits the complexities, entanglements, and moral conundrums that emerge throughout a film that engages, disturbs, and surprises.

  For all its participants -- real people and actors -- the film becomes a kind of ensemble exorcism in which the demons of the past are confronted -- if not entirely banished.

  Olfa appears in the film as do her two youngest daughters, Eva and Tayssir. Camera-ready kids, Eva and Tayssir help Ben Hania capture the giggly intimacy of sisters raised by a difficult, desperate, and often cruel mother. 

 Too shattered to relive some of the story, the real Olga yields to an actress (Hend Sabri), who handles the dramatic scenes. Nour Karoui portrays older daughter Rahma, and Ichrak Matar plays Ghofrane, another of the older siblings, who we’re told at the outset have disappeared. 

  What happened to them serves as the mystery that keeps the film percolating.

   Majd Mastoura plays all the male roles, at one point becoming so rattled, he withdraws.

   The story might have been entirely "Sins of the Mother." Each of the women carries the crippling influences of the previous generations, especially Olfa, who tries to create a strict environment for her daughters, calling their playful longings evidence that they are, in her words, “whores.”

   Forced into an arranged marriage, Olfa has her own rebellious streak. She beat up her husband on their wedding night, used his blood to fake proof of lost virginity, and eventually slept with him once a year for the sole purpose of conceiving children. She'd rather have had boys and even goes as far as to say that she hates girls.

   But that doesn't mean that Olfa's grief over the disappearance of two daughters isn't real or that she never shows affection for her two younger daughters or they for her. This despite the fact that one of Oaf's post-marriage boyfriends had his eyes (and hands) on two of the daughters. 

   Ben Hania leaves us with much to digest in a film full of heartbreak and joy -- all set against a backdrop of Tunisian political turmoil that led to a rise in religious fervor. 

    Neat explanations elude us and mood shifts can be swift and broad. One of the daughters moves from being a rebellious Goth kid with colored hair to donning a hijab, a journey that can seem as perplexing as the rest of the developments in this unflinching attempt to uncover the truth  -- or, in this case,  many truths.