Die Weißhelme

'THE WHITE HELMETS': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

The 2017 Oscar winner for Best Documentary Short Film is this heartbreaking account of the brave Syrian Civil Defense rescue workers (know as the White Helmets). As daily airstrikes kill civilians every day in Syria (over 400,000 in fives years, while millions of others have fled their homes), these daring volunteer workers heroically search for survivors, as they're often killed themselves. The film details their very passionate personal stories. The White Helmets are undoubtedly as brave, and selfless, as anyone could possibly claim to be (now, or throughout history). So the film is all at once very tragic, and inspiring. It runs just 41 minutes long, but it tells a very powerful story in that time. Orlando von Einsiedel directed the British short film, and it stars Khalid Farah, Mohammed Farah, Abu Omar and many others. I highly recommend it, the short definitely deserves all it's praise! You can see it on Netflix right now, which also released it.

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This documentary is about the Syrian Civil Defense or "The White Helmets" as the film makers decided to name them. It focuses on the personal side of the characters trying to make the viewer perceive these people as human beings rather than numbers you hear on the news. While the film succeeds at the emotional part, it fails to offer much else. There were many repetitive scenes for a 40 min documentary, and the focus on some characters went overboard sometimes.

Now, I wrote the previous part of my review trying to be as objective as possible. The next part, I will write as a Syrian who isn't on any of the many sides of the Syrian war. What made me write this review, my first on IMDb, is that I noticed many negative reviews seeming to push a propaganda opposite to the propaganda they were claiming this film is about. Comments I have high confidence they come from Syrian Assad supporters so I thought I would try to restore the balance.

While the film clearly favors the side of the WHs, their side itself is about "saving lives" regardless of any other factors so what is there to disagree with? Some commentators said the WHs are terrorists/islamists/etc and I find that really insulting as I don't myself live in a war zone in Syria, I never heard anyone questioning or criticizing WHs. Also, common sense tells me these people don't have to lie about their intentions in a country where there are countless factions fighting. Everyone is free to have their own opinion, but when most of the 1-star reviews come from 1 review accounts I find it fishy - one reviewer stating "England" as his country starts with "Shame on the western-world", a prevalent statement in the Al-Assad regime media.

Syria is a country where many evils fight. You have Al-Assad, factions affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and finally ISIS!! Each side will try to convince you with their story, like Assad fan base in many of the comments I mentioned, but the real story in Syria is about many villains fighting over the pie of things like power/oil/location and poor people suffering in the crossfire. The only light one can find in this tragedy is people like the ones in this movie whose mandate is save lives. Thank you White Helmets!

It's funny to see how a so called "documentary" based on lies and deceptions wins an Oscar. Telling lies and deceiving people, in return people will clapping you, and hey here's your Oscar. And people loved this bs (or very small proportion). There are reportages about White helmets, by real independent journalists, you should watch them and after that review this movie. Total garbage. Shame on you!

Documentary about real heroes. Everybody knows the situation in the middle east, but not many of us can connect in deep emotions with them, because we only see numbers. This documentary shows brave men fighting for the life of other people in their country without any weapons. I think that in this noise around refugees it's really hard to hear the voice of people who actually stay there. Thanks to this documentary You can somehow regain confidence in the fact that there are good people fighting for the right cause, but at the same time wonder why is this all happening and how come this kind of situations just pass through us on a daily basis. The only reason I gave a 9/10 is because it could be longer, but at the same time it's long enough. It's my first ever review on IMDb, because my feelings after watching this just couldn't let me just leave it as it is. I will definitely recommend this to everybody I'll have a chance to.

There are 14 1/10 reviews almost in a row here, I think people should think about where these may have come from as it does not seem like a coincidence.