ABSTRACT
Beneath the Veil and Shah’s follow-up documentary, Unholy War, filmed shortly after 9/11 illustrate the complicated ways in which documentaries work as narratives that claim to make historical interventions by disclosing concealed “truths” while simultaneously working to shape their audience’s perception of those truths. The discursive “truth” in the history of colonial feminist discourse about the subjugated, veiled Muslim woman awaiting liberation manifests itself through repetition and difference in Saira Shah’s documentary. The introductory preamble in the documentary shows images of the Taliban meting out their particular form of justice in Kabul’s football stadium while Saira Shah’s voice-over describes and interprets the scene for us. Shah has expressed discomfort with the way the barbarism of the Taliban became epitomized for viewers by the figure of the three girls, particularly in the United States; she even had offers to adopt the three girls in a valiant attempt to rescue them from their plight.
