It was even worse than you heard, than you read, than you feared.
“Screams Before Silence” lets the survivors of the Oct. 7 massacre at the hands of Hamas tell their stories.
The documentary, available for free at screamsbeforesilence.com, doesn’t show the grisly visuals found in the 45-minute video circulated to journalists and Hollywood denizens. The stories reveal atrocities that led one voice to describe them as “redefined evil.”
Even the Nazi machine couldn’t match the vile acts perpetrated again and again.
Sexual violence is the film’s focus. The Hamas targets endured mutilation and rape before death. The details are almost unimaginable.
Picture the worst horror film violence ever captured on screen. Now, imagine it happening hundreds of times. The survivors will live with those images until they leave this mortal coil.
The communities in question may never heal.
Some witnesses can’t help but break down on screen. One woman, tasked with attending to the stacks of body bags flooding the morgue, vowed to remain stoic despite her pain.
These details, she said, must be heard.
The survivors are artfully framed by Israeli director Anat Stalinsky, whose camera work is both tasteful and relentless. Burned-out trailers. Bullet holes. Ransacked homes forever stained by terror and death.
Other visuals come courtesy of the terrorists. Their footage captures a fraction of their savagery. We watch captured women dragged like dolls, their bodies degraded on purpose.
Just when you think you’ve heard too much, that nothing could be as harrowing as the last testimonial, another shocking account arrives.
A brief segment shows captured terrorists describing some of their actions. The scenes offer few insights, as if they shared nothing consequential during the interviews or the filmmakers wanted to put a face to the monstrosities.
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Some details are almost too devastating to process.
“We never knew what we would see [in the body bags],” one worker shares. Others describe body parts treated like toys, hacked off their owners and distributed yards away.
It always comes back to rape, humiliation and physical torture.
Always.
Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Meta, is our on-camera surrogate and the driving force behind “Screams Before Silence.” She asks the blunt, necessary questions to let the survivors speak. She repeatedly fights back her own tears and can’t help but offer comfort to her interview subjects.
Her shock mirrors ours.
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Sandberg offers her personal reflections at one point, a curious decision given what we’re witnessing. This isn’t her story, but her willingness to gather the resources necessary to document Oct. 7 earned her monologue.
The documentary doesn’t attempt to contextualize the Israel/Palestinian divide. No politics enter the frame, nor does the film explore Israel’s military reaction to the horrors.
The film shrewdly wraps just before the hour mark. How much more can audiences take?
Many grew up hearing the phrase, “Never again,” relating to the Holocaust. Yet Oct. 7 already feels far away. Just ask any college protesters cheering on the political group behind the attacks.
“Screams Before Silence” won’t wake up your average, radicalized student. It’s still chilling, invaluable and necessary.
HiT or Miss: “Screams Before Silence” could be the most consequential film of the year.
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