No Other Land

I saw the trailer for Naza and was moved by it, so I figured I should check this one off the list. This isn't something I can score, and after You Can See Everything this feels like pure documentary in a sea of more curated and tailored films trying to document real life. I basically knew nothing about this, so instead of trying to summarize the movie or laud its craft I will just talk about how it made me feel.

To be frank, I worked for a company that took out this full page ad in the New York Times.

This was after October 7 2023, so there is a lot of context missing in a screenshot of this ad, but that's kind of the genius of this doc. It doesn't really explain why anything is happening. Everyone keeps saying this conflict is complicated and historic and nuanced and I'm sure that's true. But when you see bulldozers on the horizon like Star Destroyers coming to do their daily demolition of whatever building they want, there is no nuance. They are the bad guys. I found the compliance of the IDF to be so unsettling, similar to watching The Zone of Interest. They keep repeating things like "it's the law", "what you are doing is illegal", while they destroy schools and children watch. This goes beyond politics or ideology or history, its so clearly inhumane.

The other main takeaway I had was how insanely brave these people are, let alone the film makers. Lots of shots of the shaky ground while he is sprinting from soldiers yelling "get the camera!", and the very next day he does it again! I will say I have always been a bit skeptical about the effectiveness of public protests, and that is probably because I have never been in a position where I have had to fight for any of my basic rights! Seeing how this filmmaker's dad has been fighting this fight his whole life was inspiring, but also made me sad. Early on he says how he hopes to raise awareness in America so that they can intervene with Israel, and I was like, buddy, have you been seeing the same America I have? But that's a mindset I can't even begin to comprehend, a situation being so hopeless that you depend on the magical intervention of countries with functioning democracies and a belief in personal rights and freedoms. Does that exist? And has anything changed? I'll watch the sequel, but I doubt it!

A skeptical view of this, or maybe what my uninformed view would have been a couple years ago, would be that they should just move. I hear Gaza is great this time of year. But early on a mother who has lost everything says the title of the movie when asked to find another land, and I felt the intended weight of this movie crush my soul. I live with the gift of being able to choose things like where I will live, and its easy to forget that that is a gift. This is especially clear when you see children sleeping in caves, the devil's advocate is silenced and your rage at these IDF soldiers poking the anthill every day erupts.

This movie didn't give me a lot of hope, but it didn't radicalize me either. We are so flooded with negativity and the worst of humankind every day, this felt like another piece of the bleak puzzle. But awareness is important, something I still don't always believe with protests and online movements. I am so skeptical of everything I see online and the intention of the content creators, but that's the filmmaker's whole goal, spread awareness by posting his videos on social media. Maybe these platforms I hate can actually spark change and inspire hope? Has this movie made any positive difference other than just spreading awareness, since people like me watch it and feel powerless to effect any change? I'm still working on what to do with that.