No Other Land - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

THE Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been rooted in human suffering, as Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land powerfully proves.

Shot by a quartet of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, the film takes a look at an area of the West Bank known as Masafer Yatta, a collection of Palestinian villages boasting over 1,000 occupants. In 2022, they were ordered to leave so that the Israeli military could use the historical site as a training zone. They refused.

But in the ensuing years, lives have been lived [and blighted] under the near-constant threat of bulldozers arriving at dawn to destroy homes. Worse, Israeli aggressors also threaten any protestors with violence or imprisonment, with footage showing at least two people being arbitrarily shot for stepping too close to those with guns.

One of the residents is Basel Adra, whose activist father inspired him to follow in his footsteps and video the situation, fearlessly capturing footage of the intimidation of his family and friends, as well as the ruthless bulldozing of homes.

Basel also forms an unlikely friendship with Israeli photo-journalist Yuval Abraham, who determines to expose the truth about what is happening in Masafer Yatta to any fellow Israeli willing to listen - a situation that, by his own admission, is slow to gain support.

But where Basel offers defiance, Yuval offers hope - a determination to unite with his Palestinian friend to stop the destruction and allow Masafer Yatta's people to live in peace, in their rightful homes.

With the additional support of Hamdan Balla and Rachel Szor, the quartet expose some shockingly harsh truths about life in this region, as well as the merciless persecution its people face from Israeli occupiers and settlers. In one harrowing passage, a man is shot and paralysed from the shoulders down, merely for protesting against the soldiers who coldly look on as homes are torn apart.

Both Basel and Yuval become targets themselves, especially as their campaign begins to garner international attention and attracts other filmmakers to capture their plight.

As such, No Other Land is a hard going, sobering film informed by anger. It is certainly anguished. But rightly so. There are human rights violations that should leave viewers emotionally devastated - not least the aforementioned shootings, but also spiteful tactics such as the filling in of a natural well or the targeting of a school.

There is resilience, too, from a people determined not to be forced from their homes, with few viable alternative ways in which to continue living. Some of them even take to caves.

But there's also humanity, as evidenced by the friendship between the filmmakers (which gives rise to some amusing asides) and the never-say-die attitude of the villagers, whose camaraderie [and even trust of Yuval and his motives] defies obvious expectations.

No Other Land therefore succeeds in exposing both humanity's capacity for evil and destruction, as well as its spirit and capacity for love in even the most desperate of cirumstances. 

It exposes the might of the Israeli military machine for what it is (acting on the orders of distant politicians), while showing the extent of the suffering of the normal, everyday people living in its path, just trying to survive and live peacefully.

It rightly won this year's Oscar for best documentary and deserves to find the widest audience possible.