"the debate over The Voice of Hind Rajab is one that will probably never be settled, because so much of it is rooted in a visceral response to both the use of Hind's real voice and what's been placed around it. Your concerns about the film are eloquent and compelling, and I have many good friends who feel the same way. You write the film's "call-center melodramatics" trivialize its intentions in using the real audio from that day. I will respectfully disagree."
"When you suggest a "better, truer version of the film," what you're really suggesting is a documentary-maybe even an experimental one-and I don't disagree that would be worth seeing, and worth making. But what Ben Hania has achieved is something different. She has created an accessible narrative that obliges us to listen to this girl's real voice (as well as the real voices of the rescue workers, and her cousin, and her mother) in a way that is unavoidable, and unshakeable."
Kaouther Ben Hania's film integrates Hind Rajab's real voice with dramatized reconstructions centered on a call-center rescue operation. The call-center sequences condense and dramatize actual events based on research and interviews, producing deliberate pacing that sometimes feels slow by design. The film resists easy tension and manages ticking-clock elements judiciously. The narrative places Hind's voice alongside the voices of rescue workers and family members, creating an unavoidable, unshakeable demand to listen. The approach foregrounds ethical and formal questions about documentary versus fiction while asserting a distinct, accessible narrative impact.
Read at Slate Magazine
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