Cherien Dabis’s film traces three generations of Palestinian men

Cherien Dabis’s generation-spanning drama All That’s Left of You, Jordan’s entry for the Academy Award, follows Palestinian men across decades, with key scenes set in the Occupied West Bank.

The film opens in 1988, early in the First Intifada, as two friends, Noor (Muhammad Abed Elrahman) and Malek (Rida Suleiman), run through protest-torn streets and it appears one of them has been shot. The story then cuts to Hanan (played by Dabis), who tells the camera, "I must tell you who is my son," and the narrative flashes back to 1948 Jaffa, to the orange grower Sharif (Adam Bakri as the younger Sharif, Mohammad Bakri as the older) his wife Munira (Maria Zreik) and their children; the film ultimately recounts three generations, ending in 2022.

The reviewer notes Dabis gives an aching lead performance as Hanan and that the film depicts dispossession and fraught encounters with soldiers, presenting a saga of trauma the critic links to antecedents in dramas about other mass conflicts, including Apartheid and the Jim Crow South. The New York Times designated it a Critic’s Pick. The film is not rated, is in Arabic and English with subtitles, runs 2 hours 25 minutes, and is in theaters; the opening shooting is left unresolved as the narrative loops back to later events.

Key Topics

Culture, Cherien Dabis, Noor, Hanan, West Bank, Jaffa