SHOWTIMES: 12:00p - SUN 2/21
PART OF THE 2010 ATHENS JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
CRITICS PICK: NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, and NEW YORK MAGAZINE
An engrossing, wrenching and tender documentary film, PRAYING WITH LIOR introduces Lior Liebling, also called "the little rebbe." Lior has Down syndrome, and has spent his entire life praying with utter abandon. Is he a "spiritual genius" as many around him say? Or simply the vessel that contains everyone's unfulfilled wishes and expectations? Lior - whose name means "my light" - lost his mother at age six, and her words and spirit hover over the film. While everyone agrees Lior is closer to God, he's also a burden, a best friend, an inspiration, and an embarrassment, depending on which family member is speaking. As Lior approaches Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony different characters provides a window into life spent "praying with Lior." The movie poses difficult questions such as what is "disability" and who really talks to God? Told with intimacy and humor, PRAYING WITH LIOR is a family story, a triumph story, a grief story, a divinely-inspired story.
athensjff.org
Shot over three years in a close-knit Jewish Reconstructionist community in Philadelphia, PRAYING WITH LIOR documents the extraordinary life of Lior Liebling, a rabbi’s son with Down syndrome and an obsessive love of prayer.
While family and friends marvel over Lior’s putative spirituality, the director, Ilana Trachtman, captures a larger story. As the Lieblings engage in exhaustive preparations for Lior’s bar mitzvah, we see a sweet-natured, high-functioning young man enjoy a level of assimilation — and attention — granted to few of the mentally disabled. A near-celebrity within his neighborhood, Lior seems unaware of his real-world limitations — a fact that worries his stepmother, Lynne Iser, though not his father, Mordechai.
Patiently and delicately, Ms. Trachtman teases out the tricky dynamics of a family dealing with a disabled child. Lior’s devoted brother, Yoni, sometimes resents being expected to take on parental responsibilities (“This is not my job”), while his older sister, Reena, recalls becoming a surrogate mother after the death of their mother in 1997.
Most touching is the 11-year-old Anna, who, as the youngest, laments her displacement as the center of attention. “It’s kind of annoying,” she tells us with charming candor. And watching everything in the household revolve around Lior, it’s clear that the price of his happiness may be steeper for some than for others.
nytimes.com
