I saw the film yesterday at the Strand Theatre in Rockland, Maine (it will show again tonight, March 5, at 7pm). It called to mind another documentary about the challenges of documenting land theft actions by Israel's military and settler militias, FIVE BROKEN CAMERAS. Masafer Yatta and Bil'in are different locations, but both are in the occupied West Bank and constantly besieged by violent Zionists. CAMERAS was released in 2011; more than a decade later, not much has changed.
Student of law Basel Adra operates his family's gas station following his father's arrest and imprisonment in notorious torture site Ofer Prison. He puts aside his camera and explains to his partner in documentary journalism, Israeli Yuval Abraham, that he needs to provide for his family. While Abraham moves at will on special roads for cars with yellow i.e. Israeli license plates, Adra and his neighbors are constrained at every turn: checkpoints, home and school demolitions, stun grenades and live ammunition.
The Maine audience gasped as Israeli soldiers poured concrete into a well, and when soldiers shot young Harun abu Amar as he struggled to prevent them stealing a generator. Amar's subsequent paralysis and suffering, in a filthy cave rather than in a now-demolished home, and his mother's anguish over caring for him and her wish that he could die, are fierce. (A footnote at the end of the film says he did die, and I imagine I wasn't the only one who muttered Thank God.)
The fact that Amar is visited by a host of foreign journalists and filmed even as he tells them he doesn't consent and that they should go away teases out the film's central theme: what good does documenting atrocities do if atrocities continue accelerating? The problem of finding an audience is discussed in terms of likes on social media or online publications. Adra asks Abraham if there is much interest in his articles among Israelis. There isn't.
A visit by the odious warmonger Tony Blair does little to remedy this, though appears to result in some temporary and limited relief from land theft.
A question I had going in: does this film subtly promote the Zionist project in Palestine? A friend had shared a post on the blog Marginalia Subversiva, "The Celebration of a Sanitized Narrative: How Genocide is Managed, Marketed, and Sanitized" An excerpt:
The Oscar win for No Other Land has been hailed as a historic moment for Palestinian representation in cinema. But beneath the surface of this celebration lies a deeply frustrating reality: Palestinian stories are only recognized when they fit a settler-approved narrative -- one that erases Gaza, centers Israeli voices, and reinforces the colonial fantasy of a "two-state solution."
The post linked to a scathing review by Mary Turfah, "'No Other Land' For Whom?" on the film website mubi.com. "The Palestinian-Israeli documentary indulges in a familiar kind of wishful thinking" is its subtitle and Turfah goes on to say:
Abraham remains committed to ending the program of ethnic cleansing committed in his name, but in the film and elsewhere, he attributes those horrors to the “occupation” rather than to Zionism. His condemnation of the former serves to preserve the latter. This distinction is artificial: from the standpoint of its victims, Israel is its occupation, the Zionist project necessarily one of ethnic cleansing and genocide, of total erasure.
Abraham attempts a rehabilitation of an iteration of Zionism that doesn’t exist but could, a familiar settler hope (think, imagine what America could be).
Young children crying in fear as a contingent of Israeli soldiers in combat gear looms outside the windows of their village school made me cry, too. The villagers struggle to defend the school they've built, but the occupation's bulldozer crushes it anyway. Adults comfort the children sometimes with white lies like Don't worry, you are safe and It will be ok. What else is a parent to tell them?
There is no happy ending where the children are safe. In his Oscar acceptance speech Adra invoked his infant daughter, but at the end of LAND he answered Abraham's question about his desire for marriage and children by saying that without stability "it's complicated." Filming in Masafer Yatta occurred prior to Hamas' Gaza Al-Aqsa Flood operation October 7, 2023 but the final cut includes an audio clip of an English language broadcaster repeating PM Netanyahu's lie about Hamas killing thousands of Israelis that day. That lie goes unchallenged in the film.
On our way home I asked my husband to imagine being a 12 year old who didn't know about the Zionist occupation of Palestine. How would the film seem to someone without much background information? Mark said: I don't think anyone could see this evidence of Israel's sadistic cruelty without siding with the Palestinians. My conclusion: the film is imperfect, but the Oscar win is a good thing in terms of showing how land theft by Israel is ongoing and actually has nothing to do with Hamas. And, as Turfah observes, demonstrating the need for armed resistance. No wonder it has not found a U.S. distributor!
Of course my husband had plenty of background information heading into the film. As we rose from our seats he turned to me and said, Fuck Joe Biden. I would add Fuck 47, too. They both have the blood of tens of thousands of Palestinians on their hands.
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