Synopsis
Winner of the Grand Jury Documentary prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad’s breathtaking work — a searing example of boots-on-the-ground reportage — follows the efforts of the internationally recognized White Helmets, an organization consisting of ordinary citizens who are the first to rush towards military strikes and attacks in the hope of saving lives. Incorporating moments of both heart-pounding suspense and improbable beauty, the documentary draws us into the lives of three of its founders — Khaled, Subhi, and Mahmoud — as they grapple with the chaos around them and struggle with an ever-present dilemma: do they flee or stay and fight for their country?
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Recommendations
- 90
Village Voice
The film has plenty of unflinching truth and emotion and outrage, and it ends with a gut punch. It's the subtly unreal quality of what we're seeing throughout, however, that truly highlights the obscenity of war. - 83
The A.V. Club
Individual personalities emerge, none more magnetic than Khaled Omar Harrah, who gained international recognition in 2014 for the rescue of a 10-day-old baby. - 83
IndieWire
Last Men in Aleppo is less about finding meaning amidst a massacre than it is about people who are trying to survive without it. - 80
The Guardian
Last Men in Aleppo is one of the most difficult documentaries you’ll see this year. - 80
Screen Daily
Editing is clearly complex given the variable footage, but each emergency call and every character is successfully individualised and identifiable, and several arcs snap into the overall narrative drive. - 80
Variety
May not be the most comprehensively explanatory or analytical film yet made on the war, but it’s the one that provides viewers with the most sensorily vivid and empathetic sense yet of how it feels to live (and die) through the carnage. - 80
The New York Times
This is an essential film, but it is also a terribly dispiriting one. - 75
Slant Magazine
Feras Fayyad's film is broadly concerned with portraying the titular Syrian city as a community of neighbors and colleagues.
