In this documentary Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Meta/Facebook, tackles the subject of sexual violence and rape on October 7. This is done by letting survivors and experts speak directly to Sandberg, who attentively listens.
In that it is quite effective. We get to hear from people who clearly underwent traumatic events. But as the film goes on and we see more and more people appear in front of Sandberg to tell their stories, there's a gnawing feeling that something is missing.
To explain what I mean, consider some documentaries that tackle highly emotive and traumatic events, like Werner Herzog's work, or those also covering the topic of sexual violence like 2015's The Hunting Ground and 2012's The Invisible War. These go beyond the surface level of just a testimony being told to a passive listener, and dive into the background of it, the details, the conflicting perspectives that are always bubbling under the surface with these traumatic events. We do get a glimpse of that in some of the testimonies, but that's a fortunate accident rather than a product of the filmmaker and interviewer's interventions.
This is what ultimately marked the film as a failure to me. Halfway through I was wondering to myself: Why is Sheryl Sandberg even there? Wouldn't it have been much more effective if the testimonies were heard without her? Also, I want to know more about these people. What was their life like before the horrific events of October 7, in all its normalcy and averageness?
This is again something other documentaries covering the same kind of subject do well. By going under the surface and into the details of each of these people, it makes their testimonies all the more powerful and effective. And this was woefully missing here.
I hope another director tackles the same subject in the future, as it certainly deserves to be.