""All That's Left of You," an absorbing, decades-spanning family drama by the Palestinian American director, screenwriter, and actress Cherien Dabis, begins at speed. Noor (Muhammad Abed Elrahman), a teen-age boy living in the occupied West Bank in 1988, playfully chases a buddy over a rooftop and down a street. Amid much everyday hustle and bustle, goosed by jittery editing, jolting camerawork, and anxious percussion, Noor catches up to his friend just in time for both boys to get sucked into a gathering protest."
"It's early on in the first intifada. An Israeli soldier fires a bullet, Noor falls ominously out of frame, and the film abruptly cuts to another time and place, with a closeup of Noor's mother, Hanan (played by Dabis). "I'm here to tell you who is my son," she tells us. "But, for you to understand, I must tell you what happened to his grandfather.""
All That's Left of You opens in 1988 in the occupied West Bank as Noor, a teenage boy, chases a friend and is sucked into a protest where an Israeli soldier fires a bullet and he falls out of frame. The narrative then shifts to Noor's mother, Hanan, who frames the story by recounting her son’s lineage and the fate of his grandfather. The film unfolds as a three-act, decades-spanning family drama set largely in Jaffa. It traces Sharif, a prosperous orange-grove owner in 1948, as explosions and Zionist militias force the family to flee during the Nakba, leaving property seized and lives upended.
Read at The New Yorker
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