Movie Review: ‘No Other Land’ is a shocking look at Palestinian life under occupation

The irony shouldn’t be lost on anyone that “No Other Land,” a documentary about the systemic demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, cannot find a cinematic home, either with a distributor or a major U.S. streamer.

Producers have opted to self-distribute this powerful, pointed look at Israel’s policies in seized land despite the movie earning an Oscar nomination and wins at the Berlin International Film Festival, Gotham Awards and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. “No Other Land” is, in its nature, a piece of advocacy. There are no both-sidesing explored here. The filmmakers — a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four directors — make it clear they hope documenting their plight will get the United States to pressure Israel to stop the destruction.

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The documentary is largely told from the perspective of Basel Adra, an activist born in Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the southern mountains of the occupied West Bank. The Israelis have ordered Palestinians off the land to make room for a military training ground.

Shot between 2019 and 2023 — filming ended before the Israel-Hamas war exploded — the bulldozers arrive and never stop, protected by soldiers and ripping through simple concrete homes. The residents retreat to caves, albeit with high-def TV connections. Then they try to rebuild, often under the stealth of night. Then the bulldozers return.

“They destroy us slowly. Every week, a home,” goes the narration. “Every week a new family must decide: Endure, or leave their land.”

Adra and Palestinian co-writer and co-director Hamdan Ballal are joined by an Israeli journalist, Yuval Abraham, who arrives in Masafer Yatta with the cinematographer Rachel Szor. Abraham is asked point blank on his arrival: “What do you think about what your country is doing to us?” His answer: “I think it’s a crime.”

It is a wrenching movie to see: Soldiers, with vague permission from a court that Palestinians have no say in, push old women and children, not answering their pleas to stop and merely waving away residents whose families have lived in the region since the 1830s. The residents can’t vote and their license plates set them apart from Israelis. They’re hoping enough likes on social media can change their plight.

We see women carrying out their rugs from rubble and children bewildered as their outhouse is knocked down.

“We have no other land,” says one resident, giving the documentary its name. At one point, a playground is demolished. At another, a school. Then a well is filled with concrete and water lines are cut with a chainsaw. Sometimes, nearby Israeli settlers attack as soldiers stand by.

The Palestinians are unarmed, except for cellphone cameras, which the soldiers clearly hate. When they march — a ragtag group with a banner reading “Palestinian Lives Matter” — they are met with stun grenades.

Shaky cellphone footage of military altercations mix with archive footage, TV newscasts and dreamy, languid shots of dusty villages at night lit by naked bulbs. Sometimes current day images melt to those of a generation ago, when in home movies we see Adra’s father protesting the same injustices, a never-ending cycle. His first memory is his father’s first arrest.

“No Other Land” is a piece of resistance but also humanization. When Adra is about to be arrested, his mother says what mothers regularly do: “Go wear a warmer coat,” she counsels. Palestinian children laugh as they play games in the street, throw snowballs in winter and sway gleefully from makeshift swings.

“I hope we’ll change this bad reality,” says Adra at the end. “I hope,” chimes in Abraham.

“No Other Land,” in movie theaters in select cities, is not rated but has language and violence throughout. Running time: 95 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.