150 Word Review: 'No Other Land' (2024)
Blood brothers
The Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land tells the story of an occupation. This raw, real-life chronicle of despair introduces us to two men, unlikely friends, and filmmakers: Basel, a Palestinian villager, and Yuval, an Israeli journalist. One is oppressed, the other free. Together, they document the powerful destroying the homes and livelihoods of the powerless in the rural West Bank.
Basel's family is trapped inside a larger story, a historical tragedy, but his and Yuval's movie shrinks a bloody, never-ending conflict to a more heartbreaking human size.
The footage of bulldozers demolishing schools and wells being filled with concrete as the poor wail and protest are unbearable, as are scenes where unarmed men are shot during confrontations with soldiers and nearby vigilantes.
This is a difficult-to-watch doc about second-class citizens suffering, a snapshot of Palestinian misery. It also captures dead-eyed, cold-blooded Israeli soldiers enforcing laws that punish women and children.