Before Our Land (Nuestra Tierra), there is a solemn parade of quiet production logos. This is often the case with films of political and historical importance. The stories that are the most vital are often the most difficult to tell and almost always arrive at a delay. In 2018, a local landowner named Dario Amin and two retired police officers, Luis Gomez and Eduardo Sassi, were finally tried for the murder of Javier Chocobar, an elder member of the indigenous Chuchagasta community in northwest Argentina’s Tucumán Province. The events leading up to the murder, which occurred in October 2009, were caught on video. Yet it took 9 years for the Argentinian government to recognize the Chuchagasta community’s pleas for justice.
To tell the story of this land and the murder that pushed the Chuchagasta community to fight back, Lucrecia Martel begins in space. Satellites hover over the southern hemisphere, reminding us just how large the world really is. Slowly, Martel brings us closer and closer to Argentina, with drone shots sweeping across the landscape. As the film zeroes in on the specific land where the murder took place, we hear the haunting voice of Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa. We see a field of girls playing football as community members watch from beneath a large tree. But the beauty of nature is often interrupted by the cruelty of state violence: after these brief moments rooted in love and reverence for the land and culture, Martel brings us to the cold, threatening whiteness of the court.
The story that the video tells is clear, but society distorts the image. When we hear Amin, Gomez, and Sassi defending themselves at the Our Land‘s start, it’s obvious that they’re coming from a place of privilege and state support. The dynamics at play are easy to decipher. Though the government had granted Amin the land, it wasn’t his in any real sense. It belonged to the community that already lived there. Their resistance was both mild and justified, and they were met with senseless murder. Martel interviews the community members, highlighting their love for their people and communal desire to live at peace with the land. “Who is in charge here?” Amin asks on video. The community responds, explaining that no one is in charge and that the land belongs to all of them. This communal harmony goes against the white understanding of sole land ownership and the violence of seizing land from the people who have already spent their lives and built their careers on it.
To any viewer with a conscience, Our Land is an infuriating film, highlighting how the wealthy and powerful cause needless harm and violence by dominating indigenous peoples across the globe. The Chuchagastas remind us of the Native Americans, the First Nations in Canada, and, more pointedly, the Palestinians of Gaza who have been brutalized and murdered by Israeli military and settlers alike for decades. The saddest thing about Martel’s film is that it is the story of all land. Those who die protecting their homes will live forever in our memory, especially as capitalism keeps bringing us closer and closer to environmental collapse. Our Land is an urgent film with a bleeding heart that deserves to be seen by everyone around the world. Martel has made an essential work.
Our Land (Nuestra Tierra) is now in limited release.