(The 2024 Middleburg Film Festival ran October 17-20. Check our Chris Reed’s No Other Land movie review. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
In the recent Edward Berger film Conclave, the character played by Ralph Fiennes delivers a speech in which he decries the sin of “certainty,” of knowing that one knows God’s will and is therefore right in all one does. This notion need not apply only to Catholic cardinals in the process of choosing a new pope, but is relevant to all people, everywhere. As soon as we choose to self-identify as superior to others based on our particular group, then those who stand in our way deserve to be destroyed. Such is humanity.
In No Other Land, a new documentary from a collective of four Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers—Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor—we take a front-row seat at the destruction of a village in the West Bank, Masafer Yatta. The reason for its razing? The Israeli army ostensibly needs the land for training grounds. The fact that people have been living there for generations is immaterial. We’ll learn at the end of the film that the real motivation is far more sinister.
At the center of the story is the friendship of two of the directors, Basel and Yuval, the one from Masafer Yatta and the other from Israel proper. Through archival footage, we see Basel’s history, learning how to protest at his father’s knee. For Yuval, his desire to help the Palestinian cause came when he learned Arabic, which changed his political perspective. When, during his army service, he was offered a role in intelligence, he refused.
The situation in the Middle East is complex. Antisemitism is a very real phenomenon, with deep historical, and murderous, roots. There are quite a few countries, some of them neighbors to Israel, who desire nothing more than to wipe Israel off the map. And Israel, like any other country, has the absolute right to defend itself. But two things can be true at the same time. That right of self-defense should not also grant the privilege to treat populations under your control with violence and impunity. And such brutality is what Yuval, Basel, and their colleagues showcase here.
It’s a very difficult movie to watch. Villagers are targeted when they resist, and one man is paralyzed (and will later die). Basel has to hide from military forces to avoid arrest (for protesting). Yuval, as an Israeli citizen, has a much easier time of it, but he cannot fully avoid criticism and threats. At least he gets to travel the world in support of Palestinian agency, while Basel can’t leave the West Bank. It’s a two-tiered system, what Jimmy Carter once called apartheid (an act for which he was excoriated, just as Yuval is here). Pick whatever less offensive term you would like, but the fact remains that Palestinians living in the West Bank or Gaza suffer a bleak fate.
The cameras train their lenses squarely on the plight of those in Masafer Yatta, with the representatives of the Israeli government never more than villains. This no doubt can open the film up to criticism of one-sidedness—or to arguments about the absence of any hint of Hamas or other groups seeking to kill Israelis—but its goal is to give voice to the voiceless. The truth doesn’t always set you free, but it can at least make one question the narrative. No Other Land does that quite well, and the result is gripping and extremely disturbing. Where can these people go to be safe? Nowhere. It’s a hopeless situation, with no end in sight but the worst possible outcome.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
2024 Middleburg Film Festival; Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor; No Other Land
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