With a duration of nearly two hours and a half (145 minutes), All That’s Left of You takes viewers on a journey through the history of Occupied Palestine, from the Zionist takeover of 1948 all the way to the present. Inspired by real-life events, the story focuses of Salim (Saleh Bakri). He is still a young boy in the year Israel is founded. He lives comfortably in a large house with his parents and two siblings of roughly the same in port city of Jaffa (next to Tel Aviv). The bombs begin to drop as they hear that Haifa has already fallen to the settler-colonialists.
Mum is convinced that the their former British “protectors” will help them, an illusion quickly dispelled by dad: “they are backstabbers”, he quips assertively. The couple expresses indignation that none of their Arab “brother nation” has come to their rescue as European Jews steal their land and livelihoods. The bomb attacks intensify. They seek shelter with other families. It becomes increasingly clear that they will never reclaim their old house, orange grove and peaceful lifestyle. The family used to sell the most fragrant oranges of Palestine to all of Europe (the claim that Queen Elizabeth loved their produce is a little strange, as the monarch first inherited the throne in 1952). Their trade now belongs firmly to the past. So they move to the Occupied West Bank.
The year is now 1978 and Salim is married to Hanan (played with great aplomb by the film director and writer Cherien Dabis). They have three children of their own, including chirpy and clever Noor. The family continues to grapple with colonial terrorism. IDF soldiers casually and gratuitously terrify Palestinians. Salim and Noor are nearly shot at point blank because they broke a curfew in order to fetch some medication for grandpa. They force Salim to scream from the bottom of his lungs: “I’m a coward” and “your mum was a whore”, while facing his soon. The soldiers allow them to live, but not before mortifying father and s0n with their loud, sadistic and adolescent laughter. Those who have seen Oscar-winning No Other Land (Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, 2024) or so many other Palestinian documentaries know that such behaviour is not exaggerated. Israel forces routinely humiliate and kill Palestinians in the West Bank, and their tactics are nothing short of grotesque and perverse
Fast forward another 10 years to 1988. Noor is now a handsome teenager (Muhammad Abed Elrahman). His priority is to meet girls around his age, however a twist of fate (or rather: a Zionist bullet) derails his precarious coming-of-age, while also throwing the entire family into disarray. This is the most powerful part of this interesting yet occasionally prescriptive drama. Salim and Hanan must make a decision of moral a complexity comparable to Sophie’s Choice (Alan J. Pakula, 1982). The following sequences interrogate the ethics of compassion, solidarity, war, physical integrity, nationality and individuality. Just that could be a film in itself. The conversations are profound and sobering. The final decision that humanity is resistance is laudable however painful.
The year is now 2022. Elderly Salim and Hanan travel to Haifa and to Jaffa in order to visit the house where they once lived. The realisation that Israel has stolen not only their land, but also appropriated their food and culture, is a daunting one. In yet another very powerful scene, Hanan meets with the enemy: a young Israeli man who possesses their most valuable family item. His lack of sensibility is earth-shattering. His disregard for Palestinian life and identity represents the collective mindset of a nation with a heart of stone, completely indifferent to the suffering of those who should be their best friends.
The film title has various connotations. It refers to the land, to the culture, and also to the human body. Palestinians continue to cling to whatever is left of their country and history, while also having to pick up the body parts of their loved ones.
Saleh Bakri is perhaps Palestine’s most widely-recognised actor at present, featuring in British-Palestinian drama The Teacher (Farah Nalbusi, 2023) and Moroccan LGBT+ drama The Blue Caftan (Maryam Touzani, 2022), amongst many other films. His brother Adam and his father Mohammad (also two very well-known actors in their own right) play the younger and the older version of Salim’s father Sharif.
All That’s Left of You premiered in the Proxima Competition of the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where this piece was originally written Also showing atb the 5th Red Sea International Film Festival. In cinemas on Friday, February 6th. An enlightening, concise and educational pice of fiction.
