by Finnlay Dall
Worth: $20.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal
Intro:
No Other Land proffers you to care in a way that no other medium allows.
As Israeli military vehicles swarm his home in the dead of night, co-director Basel Adra recounts his first childhood memory: “I’m five years old… A light woke me up. This was my father’s first arrest.” He is the film’s eyes and ears, the son of a Palestinian activist, a law graduate and a protestor in his own right, he’s had to mature quickly under Israeli occupation and soon finds himself leading the charge against the West Bank expulsion. Together with the help of fellow activist Hamdan Ballal and freelance Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, he uses his camcorder and archival footage to document the slow destruction of Masafer Yatta from 2019 up until October of 2023.
The villagers of Masafer Yatta go about their daily lives in an effort to rebuild what little of their homes are left in the rubble. When Yuval arrives to meet with Basel and the other townsfolk, he, like the audience, is being introduced to them, and their daily lives for the first time. Yuval, as an Israeli citizen sympathetic to the Palestinian people, is the perfect jumping in point for the viewer simply because he is an outsider. His allegiance is questioned by Hamdan and some of the other residents. At points, even we begin to wonder what his intentions are. Basel, although finding confidence in Yuval, doesn’t hesitate to remind us of the privileges that his new friend has as an Israeli. He can get covered in dust and debris and still go home to take a hot shower; he can drive home to see his mother after a long day.
As an outsider, Yuval has to build trust with the villagers. And as he banters with the men rebuilding houses, partakes in on the ground protests and is invited by Basel’s father to have supper with his family, he learns that the villagers of the West Bank are not trained freedom fighters or soldiers of war, but everyday people.
Amidst all the rubble and violence, the film takes great pains to show us these people as well. Mothers chide daughters for playing with their phones in bed. Children clap excitedly at the prospect of going to school. These small reprieves allow us to see the children and families who are truly affected.
Masafer Yatta is torn down with careless abandon. Tasked with building what the government has dubbed a ‘Military Training Zone’, contractor Ilan, in Oakley shades and a pair of pressed jeans, hands out destruction orders like simple eviction notices. Under the protection of armed soldiers, he leads his demolition team, never looking directly at the people’s lives he’s destroying despite vocal protests. Over the four to five years that the film covers, Ilan’s team demolish sheds and houses, knock down scaffolding of the attempts to rebuild, and destroy the only school in the village. Soldiers not only increase in number and aggression, but stand by and do nothing as settlers, at one stage, armed with assault rifles, terrorise the Palestinians. It is heartbreaking to watch as the villagers are forced out of their homes, but what is even worse is when we learn what any form of resistance is met with.
Harun Abu Aram was shot by an Israeli soldier for trying to take back a power generator. He was left paralysed from the shoulders down. We witness soldiers getting in the faces of Yuval and the villagers.
When Basel was born, Masafer Yatta was deemed a site for “tank training” and their electricity was regarded a security risk and had to be cut (hence the need for generators now). An Israeli news anchor questions whether “expulsion” is grounds for a war crime. [Palestinians] don’t know what a war crime is.”
Basel recounts the time then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, visited their small village: “After he returned to the UK, Israel cancelled the demolition orders for the school [we built] and homes in the street he walked in.”
The film implies that it is in our power to “hope”. Basel hopes that one day the Israeli Government will fail. Despite the Palestinian people getting knocked down again and again, “[t]hey will never make them… leave this land.” And while Hamdan worries that no one will “actually care to read about” their plight, he “hope[s] that will change” one day. No Other Land proffers you to care in a way that no other medium allows. It asks you to look, listen and learn about what Palestinians civilians have put up with and survived for decades.
