Die letzten Männer von Aleppo

This is not your usual documentary film with resource persons/interviewees and a host or narrator. It's told from a first-person point of view. The actors are the subjects playing as themselves in real time as events unfold.

It captures vividly the stark realities of war that the victims will never forget as long as they live. The wanton destruction is stupefying. And the live video shots make sure that we'll remember the ugliness of war.

The viewer is a witness to the brave, heroic efforts of the White Helmets. The viewer watches them go about their grim business of clearing the rubble caused by barrel bombs, retrieving dead bodies of their fellow holdouts, gathering torn limbs and other body parts. Yet in between the bombings, the people try as much to live a normal life: attending the wedding of a colleague, building an aquarium for pet fish out of an unused water fountain, playing with their kids in the playground while on the lookout for war planes above.

The viewer isn't surprised by the ending. On the contrary, he seems to expect it given that the White Helmets know exactly what they're up against. Still, Batoul's phone messages to his father Khaled Omar Harrah are heart-rending.

The documentary owes its existence to Mahmoud and Khaled but most specially to Khaled.

If you like to watch dead children and assorted body parts being recovered from rubble, boy, do I have the movie for you! As you might imagine this is a very hard documentary to watch, especially the beginning as you get used to watching horror after horror that is the everyday life of these people living in Aleppo, during the Syrian civil war. The movie follows the lives of some of the White Helmets, an organization that was founded to help people in need during wartime and has been subject to a lot of conflicting information, some even claiming them to be terrorists, although every piece of evidence points to them just being a mostly humanitarian organization. As for the movie it is extremely well made, and the directors have a very cinematic approach both to shooting and to editing making it look just as good as any war movie blockbuster. And that helps it hit even harder when all the horrible imagery starts showing. My one complaint about the movie is that the middle part drags a little as it gets a bit tiring watching rubble after rubble, but it was necessary to show how these people lived and makes the final gut wrenching moment a bit more poignant. That ending puts the film into a new perspective and offers little to no hope about the subject. It is a wonder how they managed to make this movie and capture these unfortunate events on camera.

"Last Men in Aleppo", is a shattering Danish/Syrian documentary about the Syrian Civil War that should leave you in anger and tears after viewing it.

Beginning as a film editor, Syrian writer/director Firas Fayvad previously had made documentaries for television, his most famous being "On the Other Side", the making of which resulted in Fayyad's arrest and torture for nine months between 2011 and 2012. But even that has not achieved the level of international fame "Last Men in Aleppo" has brought him, for it documents the efforts of the White Helmets, an organization consisting of ordinary citizens whose purpose is to save civilians (especially children) who are buried under the rubble from continuous bombings by the Soviet Union unabashedly targeting apartment buildings, hospitals and non-military establishments.

What is so shocking about this film is the way it plants the viewer in the middle of the violence as it is happening, and from the point of view of the heroic rescuers. There are deliberate lulls in the film in which we live in the houses with the families of the White Helmets, but that just makes the inhuman tragedy even more shocking when the violence comes. This is a film impossible to forget once seen.

Tough movie to watch. Tougher to read the reviews of dumb conspiracy theorists who think George Soros can cause solar eclipses and the such. It's actually a remarkably unpolitical film, but follows the day by day lives of firemen in Aleppo. It's pretty tragic, but the humanity of the people in Syria shine through.

Full review on my blog max4movies: De sidste mænd i Aleppo (international title: Last Men in Aleppo) is a documentary about the White Helmets, a voluntary nonprofessional organization in Syria that has been helping people after bomb attacks since the civil war started in 2013. The documentary features footage that was shot between 2013 and 2017 and mostly focuses on three young men and their dilemma whether to stay or leave Aleppo. There is few information provided and no additional material was used (like interviews or external media coverage), which is why the documentary feels authentic but also raw. The conflict in Syria is a contemporary geopolitical crisis and, thus, the documentary is topical, important, and although few scenes actually contain graphic violence or gore, the catastrophe feels personal and heart-breaking. Although there are some technical drawbacks (e.g., structure and editing), the subject matter is simply too important to disregard.