One of the year’s most acclaimed releases, this riveting documentary by two-time Oscar®-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin) uses an audacious formal conceit to tell the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters. Attempting to answer the question of how and why the Tunisian woman’s two eldest were radicalized, Ben Hania reveals a complex history. We watch as the family relives key events in their lives with help from professional actors standing in for the missing girls. Winner of the Best Documentary award at the Cannes Film Festival, Best Documentary Feature at the Gotham Awards, and Best Writing at the IDA Documentary Awards, Four Daughters is a compelling portrait of five women and a unique and ambitious work of nonfiction cinema that pushes against the conventional boundaries of the documentary form to explore the nature of memory, rebellion, and the ties that bind mothers and daughters.

For in-depth thoughts on Four Daughters, please see my colleague Cody Allen’s review from its original theatrical release here.

Video Quality

Four Daughters arrives on Blu-Ray a few months after its DVD release, and we are glad the decision was made to give the film an upgraded presentation in the end. There is no doubt that the movie itself and all the footage within it look as technically excellent as you can reach in high definition. Kino Lorber always delivers a favorable encode and allows the film plenty of room to breathe. This company rarely lets us down in this respect, and it is always a joy to view their releases. There is no hint of compression artifacts or other digital nuisances of the sort.

The film features an array of materials that give you unparalleled access to this world. This relatively recent footage looks incredibly crisp and clear with a natural color grading and detailed textures within the background. There are a few instances of news footage that looks pretty decent, as well. Everything looks as good as the footage will allow. Kino Lorber has delivered some wonderful work with this one.

Audio Quality

This Blu-Ray comes with a strong DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track in the original Arabic that captures this material exactly as intended. The movie is primarily engaging exchanges of dialogue, and all of the conversations come through clearly. There is also a decently textured sound design within this interior space. Ambient noises are rendered with precision within the contained soundscape. The filmmaker does a really great job of capturing the subjects and making sure all this information comes through with absolute clarity. The score establishes the tone of the film, and this element is resolved well here as it permeates the room. The audio track proves to be the ideal representation of this feature. There are optional English subtitles included for those who desire them.

Special Features

Interview with Director Kaouther Ben Hania: A great 32-minute conversation with the filmmaker in which she discusses how she first heard about this story, why she was drawn to this project, working with the subjects, the complexities of the subjects, how things evolved with the performers in the film, and much more.

Trailer: The two-minute trailer is provided here.

Final Thoughts

Four Daughters is an inventive look at reckoning with familial trauma through artistic expression. While one could make the argument that the audience should not be privy to some of the processes leading to the interactions, the material is rarely less than riveting as these subjects attempt to make some sort of breakthrough. The filmmakers structure the journey in a really dramatically satisfying manner that keeps things from being so straightforward. All of these elements elevate it to one of the strongest documentaries of the year. Kino Lorber has provided this film with a Blu-Ray that sports a healthy A/V presentation and a couple of interesting special features. If the subject sounds intriguing to you, be sure to give it a shot. Recommended

Four Daughters will be available to purchase on Blu-Ray on April 2, 2024. The film is currently available on DVD and Digital.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Kino Lorber has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.