In Man Number 4, Miranda Pennell confronts a disturbing image circulating around social media, part of a larger collection of images from the genocide in Gaza. The photograph, taken by an unknown person, depicts hundreds of Palestinians detained in an open-air pit in Beit Lahia, Gaza. Pennel distorts the image by zooming into its pixels, eventually making out one figure, man number 4, who is later revealed to be Dr. Khalid Hamoda, a surgeon who vanished, and lost his wife and daughter during an Israeli airstrike.

Pennell reworks images from colonial archives to reflect on contemporary issues, highlighting the importance imagination plays in interpreting historical documents. Through the reworking of this image Pennell asks, how do we escape the desensitization and the normalization of the genocide in Gaza? Pennell presents the image as evidence of war crimes, complicity, and our possible passivity, which in itself is an act of complicity. Through this, following the essay film tradition, this film deconstructs the barrier between spectator and subject, compelling the viewer to confront their own position within systems of witnessing, complicity, and response.

Man Number 4 is part of a larger block on investigating images of violence against Palestinians.