Last Men in Aleppo (2017) User Reviews (13)

Amid the Rubble

[albertval-69560 · 8/10 · 18 December 2021]

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.

What Do You Say About a Movie Like This?

[evanston_dad · 8/10 · 26 February 2018]

Ooff....I can't even.

How do you review a movie like "Last Men in Aleppo?" It's about as opposite from entertaining as you're likely to get, yet it should be watched by everybody. It's incredibly urgent, yet it's so lacking in hope that it seems naive to think it will inspire any kind of action or change. It's basically an obituary for a country that hasn't completely died yet, but is certainly dying. And doing so while the world stands back and watches.

Last year, the film that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject was about a member of the White Helmets, a volunteer emergency response group in Syria. He enjoyed 15 minutes of fame when footage of him pulling a living baby from rubble circulated the Internet. That man is now the focus of "Last Men in Aleppo," a film that chronicles his life and eventual death as a member of the White Helmets. Whereas "The White Helmets," in that image of a rescued baby, offered some ounce of hope to cling to, "Last Men in Aleppo" offers nothing but despair. It's the kind of movie that makes it difficult to go about your daily life. The mundane minutiae of being a privileged American -- my biggest annoyance right now is that the motion-sensor light on my garage needs to be replaced -- make me almost embarrassed to enjoy a life of extreme luxury compared to the living conditions of these poor poor people in Syria. That the developed world stood back and watched this conflict happen with a shrug of its collective shoulders will go down in history as one of its most shameful moments.

Grade: A

Movies Aren't Always Fun

[michael-young-585 · 8/10 · 1 December 2018]

Not all movies are fun, and this one sure isn't. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good movie.

The emotions raised in this movie are one's of disgust and sympathy. Disgust for the actions of the Syrian government, and its Russian allies, in bombing the crap out of one of their own cities (Aleppo). The destruction portrayed here is, frankly unimaginable, as you see the bombs being dropped on a city that probably has more bombed out homes and apartments than livable ones. How, you can't help but ask, can a government do that to its own people? Is there really any justification for this kind of behavior?

There aren't many reviews in IMDB for this movie, but one of them is from a Syrian government sympathizer who claims that the images and story presented here are nothing but anti-government propaganda. Well, if that is what it is, then they have gone to incredible lengths to create an alternative, fictional universe and the filmmakers deserve awards not for documentary feature, but best special effects. I don't know how you could fake many of these scenes.

The sympathy comes from the story that unfolds in this documentary for a small band of dedicated Aleppans (?) called the White Helmets. These people are sort of the equivalent of a fire department, except that fighting fires is probably the smallest part of their job. Mostly they spend days on end digging people, some of them alive, but most of them dead, out from under the collapsed buildings where they used to live. Most of the bodies are those of children and women and the horror of finding unattached limbs is not sugar-coated here. How you ask, can these people continue to live here.

And, an even bigger question is how can these White Helmets do this kind of work day after day? We see one of the men, a leader of one of the brigades, find some small amount of solace in creating a gold-fish pond in his courtyard. His love for his family, and his city, is so strong and, especially at the end, it is difficult not to cry for him.

This is not a feel-good movie - there is no way you can laugh during this movie, nor feel better about the prospects of these people. But it is a powerful and effective documentary that opens your eyes to both what is evil in men, and how much good can be found in those who fight it. I give this 4 stars (out of 5).

Tough watch

[hsantamaria · 10/10 · 10 July 2017]

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.

Heartbreaking Documentary - A testament to the horrors of the Syria Civil War

[nicolaifrostholm · 10/10 · 16 May 2017]

I felt really bad after watching this documentary... but I suppose that's the whole point of it - to try and awake our sense of humanity and react politically against these atrocities committed against innocent civilians. I hope our politicians in the West are watching this, but I fear they will not do anything to protect these victims of genocide. The documentary shows the brutal reality of what happened and is still happening in Syria.

A brilliant documentary uncomfortable to watch but rewarding,

[JohnDeSando · 5 July 2017]

"There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like 'Poo-tee-weet?'" Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Call it what you will, Syria's President Assad's pummeling his people with the aid of Russian bombers is genocide plain and simple. You do not want to see the blunt documentary Last Men in Aleppo if you support Assad or can't stomach The White Helmets pulling dead babies from rubble.

What you will see, however, is a first-rate rendering from the streets of Helmet heroic citizens risking their lives to save the victims of the destruction. The doc concentrates on Khaled Omar, a founder of the Helmets, looking for people to save all the time staying in contact through cell with his family. On occasion he plays with the kids at an oasis of a playground.

Therein lies the supreme irony of people trying to survive holocaust and trying to retain the dignities of normal life. As one Helmet says, "Should we sit down and cry or what?" Actually only the words of the survivors can get even close to understanding genocide in our own time, 250,000 Syrians dead since the purge began in 2011.

Although Khaled and his crew save adults as well, the children are the starkest notion of cruelty on a mass basis and the loss of future for everyone, as Khaled says profoundly and prophetically, "The dilemma is the children." Despite the discursive narration and exposition that seem to randomly course among the ruins, the cumulative effect of sorrow and brief joy is to give us an unforgettable documentary experience, even if we go back to our democratic safety zones, creating a few potholes on an airstrip while the city burns.

"The horror! The horror!" Joseph Conrad's Kurtz in Heart of Darkness

Sad sad story

[bastos · 7/10 · 19 August 2021]

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.

Devastating

[Morpheus640 · 10/10 · 9 May 2022]

10 stars for the bravery of the innocent children and men who risked there lives

Assad and putin prove there is no god . Just mass murderers who live in opulence as they slaughter children.

An Important Documentary That Sometimes Feels Too Raw

[max4movie · 7/10 · 14 February 2020]

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.

thank you khalid

[ykypfggbt · 10/10 · 12 February 2023]

Thank you to the white helmets. This is so painfully raw, sometimes too raw for your own comfort but maybe this is what it takes for you to realize the intensity of what has been happening in syria.

It hits you that everything happening in this is real and that the scenes of ruined and cars on fire are not from a hollywood movie and the bodies are not what remained from a snuff film. This all happened and is happening. And yet some people still find place for propaganda talk and have the nerve to falsify any evidence of what occurred. There were war crimes being committed and none said anything.

You feel angry. You laugh, you smile, cry, stare in disbelief and even close to refrain from looking at some scenes May syria and syrians heal one day.

A moving documentary about the civil war in Syria that pulls no punches

[rblenheim · 8/10 · 22 March 2018]

"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.

This documentary's earned its Academy Award nomination.

[the_glorious_sob · 5/10 · 1 March 2018]

This impressive documentary is deserving of an Oscar nomination. What caught my eye is the word "Aleppo," the Syrian city that's been under attack by numerous people ever since. Maybe the fact this documentary is about the Syrian civil war got me watching this documentary on Netflix first (It has 2 other feature documentaries available to view.) could assure the Oscar win. "Last Men In Aleppo" follows some Syrian rescue workers identified as "White Helmets" & showcases these men as humans--husbands and fathers taking care of their families but also saving living citizens & recovering the dead, both caught in the bombing of the city. Also the rescue workers struggle with the conflict of leaving Syria to find better lives for themselves & their families. As an American safely observing the Syrian warfare on the news, I cannot take for granted my own country & my liberties & privileges as the White Helmets of Aleppo see death & war as a regular part of their lives.

Eyewitnessing one hell on earth

[ethanoel · 8/10 · 28 October 2017]

90 people died in April 2017 when sarin gas projectiles were fired into Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in the Idlib province of north-western Syria. of course Russia again used its veto to end an investigation of Syria chemical attacks. more than 1100 children are now suffering from acute malnutrition in the - since 2013 - besieged rebel-held eastern Ghouta where up to 400,000 people are believed to live in one of the last remaining opposition strongholds in Syria. their fate will be grimmer than those in Aleppo where Assad and Putin managed to slaughter thousands.

cholera is spreading incredibly fast in Yemen, turning an already dire situation for children into an enormous disaster in the war that is mostly forgotten in the international media. and in Myanmar at the very moment (October 2017) about 600,000 Rohingyas have fled their homes for safety in Bangladesh after a genocide carried out by Myanmar military. survivors have reported summary executions, rape and the wholesale destruction of villages. land mines now line the road out of Myanmar causing even more deaths...

the list of the ongoing hells in our world is endless. Aleppo is not over - not even in Aleppo itself where there are still countless bodies rotting in the ruins and many rescue workers and other inhabitants now in Assad's hellholes of prisons where they are daily tortured and then executed.

the document in itself is as shocking and repulsive as you might expect but then it is shocking and repulsive at least for a normal human being to see dead babies and children covered in dust being dug up from devastated buildings and crumbled concrete. the document shot in hand-held camera is quite similar to "ambulance/Gaza" by Mohamed Jabaly (2016) which also focused on the desperate work of the rescue crew during the Israelian massacre of July 2014 in Gaza. both are utterly important eyewitness reports and both are sadly recommended.