In a West Bank village under siege, one man’s efforts to guide his students reveal the private cost of political conflict.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News

A virtual fiction film version of the 2024 Academy Award-winning documentary “No Other Land,” “The Teacher” begins with a Palestinian home being destroyed by the Israeli military in the West Bank, and its occupants left homeless and bereft. Earlier, we witness a Palestinian man named Basem El-Saleh (Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, “The Band’s Visit”) drive his car through the hills and valleys of Nablus, where the film was mostly shot by British-Palestinian writer-director, activist, and BAFTA Award-winner Farah Nabulsi. Basem is headed for his classroom, where he teaches English and is kind, but also firm with his all-male students. These include brothers Adam (Muhammad Abed Elraman), a brilliant student, and Yacoub (Mahmoud Baki), who is bigger than Adam but not as smart.

Also busy at the school is a British social worker named Lisa (Imogen Poots). The house that is destroyed is Adam and Yacoub’s and their widowed mother’s. Their belongings are left on the road in front. Basem informs Lisa, “the lady from London,” that all the houses in the area are under demolition orders, including his. In disturbing scenes, Yacoub and Adam see Israeli settlers setting fire to Palestinian-owned olive trees. They confront them, and Yacoub is shot and killed.

A scene from "The Teacher."
A scene from “The Teacher.”

At the same time, an American couple named Cohen is in Israel waiting for news of their son, an Israeli-American soldier who was abducted by the Palestinians. His abduction is a major news issue, and his return could mean the release of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians held by the Israelis.

Writer-director Nabulsi, making her feature debut, has managed to transform political issues into human beings to help us see them more clearly and understand and sympathize with them. As Simon Cohen, the father of the abducted soldier, Dublin-born theater and film actor Stanley Townsend delivers a jolt of gravitas arguably equal to Bakri’s, giving the film a sense of balance. It might have made sense to humanize the abducted soldier further by making him a more complete character as well.

But “The Teacher” has enough on its plate. We learn that Basem had an adolescent son who died in an Israeli prison. His father carries the weight of that loss, too. Adam and Yacoub’s father died of natural causes. Adam and Basem form a father-son bond. Basem and Lisa have a bond as well. He lends her books. They both smoke cigarettes and do so together at times. A romance blooms. El-Saleh, who bears a resemblance to the German actor Jurgen Prochnow (“Das Boot”), has dignity, as well as gravitas.

Yes, the word “teacher” in the title has several meanings. History is a teacher, also experience. But primarily, the title refers to Basem, who is more than a teacher. He is a man with a past, and his other connections will lead to further complications, some of them dangerous. Basem visits a fruit market where he appears to exchange code words with a dealer. Basem’s greatest priority is trying to keep the unstable Adam, who wants vengeance against the settler who killed Yacoub, safe and alive. At the same time, Simon and Rachel Cohen (Irish actor Andrea Irvine, “Ella Enchanted”) strive to learn what is being done to secure the release of their son Nathanael. In the James Dean-like role of the angry and disturbed Adam, Abed-Elraman is convincing in his grief for his brother, who was the brawn to his brains. Israeli military trucks come to the village. Armed soldiers search homes. Basem’s green and blue interior walls seem designed to offset the drab beige of the desert. In the end, a life is saved, but someone has to pay a price. Bakri, the son of filmmaker Mohammad Bakri, the director of the controversial 2002 documentary “Jenin, Jenin,” should have been in the running for the 2024 Academy Awards for best actor. While not as powerful as Academy Award nominee “Waltz with Bashir” (2008) or the award-winning documentary “5 Broken Cameras” (2011), “The Teacher” has its own rewards.

‘The Teacher’

Rating: R, profanity, and a sexual reference.

Cast: Saleh Bakri, Imogen Poots

Director/writer: Farah Nabulsi

Running Time: 1 Hour, 55 Minutes

Where to Watch: AMC Boston Common and the Museum of Fine Arts

Grade: A-