It is exceedingly difficult to evaluate Resistance: They Fought Back without considering a couple questions. First, do we really need another pathos-wringing documentary about the Holocaust? Has any event in all human history ever been so thoroughly covered by nonfiction cinema? The second question is much more troubling: How do current world events complicate or contradict the film’s message?
To be fair, Resistance does offer up a few new details that have either not been covered or have been only lightly examined in previous iterations of Holocaust documentaries. Specifically, as the title suggests, the film covers Jewish resistance to the Nazis’ campaign of extermination. It identifies three broad categories of resistance, though two feel a bit stretched, to the point that merely surviving the Shoah may in fact count as resisting it in the film’s logic. Resistance makes a lot of fuss about these Jewish efforts being completely unknown and also so poignant, but on these points it is all “tell, not show.” The idea that Jewish resistance has escaped historical and popular notice is obviously false; there are multiple well-known films about Jewish resistance to the Nazis. For instance, there’s Son of Saul, about the Auschwitz Sonderkommando uprising. which won an Oscar! Beyond a single sentence about the importance of that episode, the film does nothing to show that Jewish resistance was of much consequence, so its “poignancy” also seems overstated.
While some of the content could arguably be considered fresh, the emotional score, the lingering shots of someone staring at a crucial document and the “serious whisper” style of the interview dialogue, however, are all completely overdone in this particular genre of filmmaking. The thirst for pathos that Resistance demonstrates cheapens the seriousness of its intentions. It’s not as if the film needs to approach the Holocaust with the goofy glee of Inglourious Basterds, but awkward, tired attempts to drive home the gravity of the topic do not work.
Regarding the second question about the film — the degree of its earnestness — we must take into account the current political context. Right now, as this review is being published, Israel is bombing Gaza, carrying out a genocide against Palestinians. In light of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and its current scorched earth campaign there, the events depicted in this film take on a troubling resonance. One such scene involves men entering and exiting the Jewish ghetto having to undergo “body searches.” It is hard to view without thinking of the countless checkpoints that Palestinians must suffer through daily, and then wonder if the interviewees see the sharp parallels. It is likely the interviewees do not, by the way, given that Avinoam Patt is among those who receive the most screen time. Patt has repeatedly written that Hamas are as bad as the Nazis and has been an active cheerleader for the genocide of Palestinians since October 7. Repeatedly throughout Resistance, one can find parallels between Jewish suffering in the 1930s and ’40s and Palestinian suffering right this very minute. Nearly every personal story told by an interviewee in the documentary is one that could be told by a contemporary Gazan. Perhaps relatedly, the film has a severe allergy toward mentioning the Soviet Union; so thorough is the aversion to mentioning the subject that it cannot but be intentional. This is incredibly difficult to understand, given that a very large amount number of Holocaust victims were Soviet citizens.
If Jewish resistance to the Holocaust is the most “poignant” issue about the Holocaust, and if the Holocaust is among the most serious and important topics/events anyone can discuss today, how can anyone involved with this project support the genocide in Gaza? How can Jews who resisted the Nazis be heroes, but Palestinians doing the very same thing be terrorist villains? Perhaps it’s unfair to expect the film to answer these questions, but the questions remain hanging in the air.
Resistance: They Fought Back was made well before the events of October 7, and cannot be expected to directly comment upon them. But as a work of art that’s just been released, it lives in our current world and reflects it. The film is clearly correct in its assertion that genocide is the gravest of topics, and the fact that one is currently ongoing distracts the viewer from how the film delivers that very message.
Photo courtesy of Abramorama
Ed. note- This is an updated and revised version of this review.
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