‘Our Land’ Review: Lucrecia Martel Confronts a Long History of Dispossession

The opening feels almost cosmic. The world appears as if seen from some kind of orbital station. As the images move steadily closer to Earth, the soundtrack carries Mercedes Sosa singing the Kyrie that opens Misa Criolla, by Ariel Ramírez. The vast and the biblical gradually give way to the human and the everyday as the camera descends onto a modest football pitch in the territory of the Indigenous community of Chuschagasta, in Tucumán, northern Argentina, finally settling on the calm, observant face of a woman.

It is not Lucrecia Martel’s intention to make a mystical, Terrence Malick-like film. Rather, she uses that contrast—between immensity and intimacy, the global and the particular—to show how a logic that runs through the entire world finds its echo at the local level, and has done so for centuries. Nuestra Tierra is, on the surface, the study of a specific case—the murder of Tucumán community leader Javier Chocobar—but it is also a reflection on the historical, capitalist logic that has systematically displaced Indigenous peoples from their lands. Or, as in this case, challenged their claim to the small piece of the world they consider their own.

The case—and the public trial that followed—is something Martel could have approached through a straightforward, informational, almost televisual lens. But the director of La Ciénaga understands that what makes this story compelling is not only what happened, but what it reveals about the foundational logic of a nation, of a system of ideas, and of land ownership itself. This does not make Our Land merely a political, philosophical, or historical essay; it is also a deeply human drama unfolding in the present, one in which those long-standing tensions are made visible.

Javier Chocobar was murdered in 2009 in his community of Chuschagasta when three men—claiming legal ownership of the land and seeking to exploit it for mining—arrived at the site, became embroiled in a confrontation with its original inhabitants, and opened fire, killing one of them. Part of the action was recorded on video by the perpetrators themselves, and that footage is revisited and reconstructed during the trial, which only took place years later, in 2018, in Tucumán.

The legal and criminal proceedings form the narrative backbone of the film, unfolding through the familiar rhythms of such cases: accusations, defenses, reconstructions, testimonies, cross-examinations, and closing arguments. Martel films these spaces with a precise attention to detail, attuned not only to what is said but to what happens on the margins—private exchanges, glances, the subtle dynamics that often unfold off the record. At the same time, she gives space to the accused—Darío Amín, Luis Gómez, and José Valdivieso—their lawyers, and the witnesses and relatives of Javier, some of whom were themselves injured in the attack.

Running parallel to this thread, Martel delves into the history of the community: the lives of its members, their migrations, hardships, struggles, and memories, as well as their ongoing fight—before and after Javier’s death—for recognition of their rights to the land where they were born and still live. These personal stories, often conveyed through photographs, intersect with a broader historical perspective that traces what has happened to these territories over centuries, and how political, economic, and administrative systems have worked in tandem to dispossess their inhabitants.

Nuestra Tierra is also striking for its formal choices, many of them tied to a curious—at times epic, at times almost playful—use of drones. These shots situate the contested space while also drawing attention to specific details that might otherwise go unnoticed. Equally notable is Martel’s decision to grant significant screen time to the defendants and their lawyers, allowing them to lay out their arguments without overt commentary or correction. Their discourse, marked by brutality, condescension, and racism, ultimately exposes itself.

Here, Martel makes a deliberate shift toward clarity. The film is open, direct, and largely free of the increasing stylization that seemed to define her later work, particularly Zama. This is not a repudiation of those earlier formal strategies, but a strategic recalibration: by stepping away from overt experimentation, she achieves a film that is at once humane, moving, and sensitive, while remaining unmistakably personal and formally assured.

As always, the real power lies in the details: in the way Chocobar’s widow emerges as a central figure, recounting her husband’s life through photographs and shared memories; in the chorus of voices from the Chuschagasta community, which weaves together a broader history of internal migration in Argentina and the recurring economic crises that have shaped it for decades; and in the historical insights that deepen our understanding of the long struggle of Indigenous peoples.

Although Martel wisely avoids anything resembling a platform-friendly true crime format, the dramatic weight of the case and the trial remains undeniable—a stark demonstration of a brutality and racism that persist to this day. Considering that most of the material was filmed in 2018, it is hard not to feel that, in the years since—especially in light of Argentina’s political climate by 2025—things have only worsened, and that many of the attitudes on display no longer even feel the need to disguise themselves. In that sense, the film’s lucid and generous clarity becomes one of its greatest strengths: it articulates, with both calm and urgency, the perspective of communities that have rarely, if ever, truly been heard.