Avis Metacritic

Witnessing is the most effective defense people have against occupation, and the Israeli military, like all thieves, wilts in the face of being watched. The footage is out there, and it’s rarely been assembled into a more concise, powerful, and damning array than it is here. Now it only has to be seen.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of No Other Land lies in the way it compresses time.

No Other Land, for its many images of despair, still offers a stirring vision for what could be – Israelis and Palestinians working together in the name of justice, collaborating toward a world where both are free.

No Other Land is a portrait of relentless cruelty, but it is also a portrait of the resilience of this besieged community.

The film stays close to its subjects and testifies to the resilience of the Masafer Yatta community. It takes courage and conviction to rebuild after every act of destruction.

Given the conditions of its production, No Other Land would be vital even in a more ragged form. But the filmmaking here is tight and considered, with nimble editing (by the directors themselves) that captures the sense of time at once passing and looping back on itself.

With exceptional lucidity, No Other Land reminds us of the human stakes of Israel’s resettlement of the West Bank, and that fighting for justice starts from the ground up.

It is a story about power and it needs to be told.

A documentary that is particularly urgent and eye-opening in the context of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Along with the documentation of material destruction and displacement, the movie is a record of psychological warfare, of the effort to demolish morale, suppress energy, break will. This, as much as the physical violence that it documents, gives the movie immense moral authority.