‘Holding Liat' Review: Emotional Darren Aronofsky-Produced Israeli Hostage Doc Doesn't Shy Away From a Complex Situation

Yahoo

20-02-2025

It's impossible to know how you would react if a major historical tragedy were to befall your family. Would you tune everything out to focus entirely on your personal misfortunes, doing all you can to make things better for your loved ones? Or would you also try, if the circumstance permitted, to see things within a broader context, questioning how such a tragedy managed to happen in the first place?
This is the dilemma at the heart of the politically potent and emotionally gripping new documentary Holding Liat, which follows two elderly parents facing the kidnapping of their daughter during the Hamas attack of October 7th, 2023. Offering a rare look at all the backdoor lobbying, moral questioning and endless waiting involved in an affair that lasted for nearly two months, director Brandon Kramer does an impressive job revealing the personal and geopolitical aspects of a heartbreaking true story.
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The film, which premiered in Berlin's Forum sidebar, manages to both voice criticisms of the Israeli government and its fervent supporters, and remain compassionate toward the victims of a massacre whose repercussions are still being felt across the world. At a time when people feel obliged to choose which side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict they stand on, Holding Liat takes a thoughtful middle ground that exposes the situation without exploiting it. Whether an American distributor will want to touch such a divisive hot potato is another question, but Kramer's movie certainly merits attention.
Forty-nine-year-old history teacher Liat Beinin Atzili and her husband, Aviv, were residents of the Nir Oz kibbutz when Hamas militants pierced the border on October 7th, killing over a thousand Israelis and taking hundreds of others hostage. The documentary begins a few weeks after the attack, when Liat's retired parents, Yehuda and Chaya, are desperately searching for news on their daughter and son-in-law.
As a pair of Americans who emigrated to Israel in the 1970s, where they raised Liat and her younger sister, Tal, the Beinins find their lives completely upended when we first encounter them. While Chaya stays back home to be with the rest of her family, Yehuda soon heads off to Washington, D.C., where he joins other parents and relatives to lobby for the hostages' release.
It's clear from the get-go that Yehuda is not an admirer of Benjamin Netanyahu and the current Israeli regime, and he certainly doesn't fit the cliché of a flag-waving Zionist. Decked out in a 'Good Morning Vietnam' t-shirt and sporting a Bernie bumper sticker on his car, he's a devout leftist who came to Israel hoping to settle into a country filled with socialist Kibbutzim, only to find it ruled decades later by a coalition of religious fundamentalists and far-right zealots, with a corrupt leader at the top.
While in Washington, Yehuda tries to coerce senators and congresspeople into negotiating with Hamas for the handover of Liat and Aviv, although the latter's whereabouts remain unknown. Outspoken and refusing to cater to the faction he's stuck with, Yehuda can't help opening his mouth and getting into trouble. 'We're being led by crazy people, whether on the Israeli or Palestinian side,' he complains, while everyone keeps telling him to play the emotional angle, not the political one. This includes his daughter, Tal, who has a hard time dealing with her father's refusal to kowtow to politicians. 'Do you think I wanted to meet Mitch McConnell, that fucking asshole?!' she yells at him, in a scene that would make for good Jewish comedy if the situation weren't so tragic.
Especially sad is the case of Netta, one of Liat's three children, who survived the attack. He's been severely impacted by what happened, and unlike his grandfather doesn't what to talk about Bibi or Gaza. There's a scene in which he's sitting with Yehuda in the back of a car after a fundraising event, and the two are unable to speak to each other. The chasm between them seems to reflect the greater chasm separating several generations of Israelis — from the old left-wing idealists like Yehuda to their teenage grandchildren, who have grown up in a fractured world that's made them more fatalistic.
Kramer focuses on these moments in the early part of Holding Liat, offering a lucid portrait of a family divided by a conflict that hits them directly as it echoes across the globe. The second half of the film, which isn't worth spoiling for the emotional weight it carries, shifts from the political to the personal as Yehuda, Chaya, their children and grandchildren cope with the realities of the disaster.
If there are moments where Kramer definitely turns on the waterworks, with a score by Jordan Dykstra (20 Days in Mariupol) amplifying the impact of such scenes, the movie remains a more even-handed account of events relative to so much out there, whether on TV or social media. Especially poignant is a closing scene set at Israel's Holocaust museum Yad Vashem, in which the film attempts to draw a link between the walls erected around the Warsaw Ghetto and those dividing Gaza from neighboring Israel. Some will no doubt find the comparison controversial, but for the Beinin family, it's a reality they've now experienced first-hand, and one they continue to grapple with as life inevitably goes on.
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