Several men make it their life’s mission to save lives as the Syrian war escalates in this harrowing documentary that is somewhat too reliant on cloyingly manipulative music to deliver the emotions.

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I’ve been meaning to see this documentary for quite some time, after it got nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.  The award unexpectedly went to Icarus (2017), in a year when Agnes Varda and JR also got nominated for their charming Faces Places (2017). 

The Syrian war was one of the worst human tragedies of the 2010s but stories of courage, perseverance and compassion were many. 

Last Men in Aleppo taps into the stories of the ‘White Helmets’ (or the Syrian Civil Defence), some of whom are profiled in this harrowing documentary about these brave volunteers who stay behind in the war zone to rescue people trapped in the rubble. 

We see them pull out dead babies—these images will hit you in the gut.  But occasionally, someone is pulled out alive and becomes a cause for celebration. Any celebration is muted of course, as they remain on high alert for the next airstrike, scanning the skies for planes and helicopters. 

“I’d rather they die before my eyes than have something happen to them far away.”

The emotional toll is real, and anyone could die at any time, yet the documentary finds moments of precious interactions between adult and child, rescuer and the rescued.  The filmmaking is mostly handheld, shot as it is in dangerous scenarios, giving it a rough-hewn urgency that elevates its power. 

However, an aspect that I felt made Last Men in Aleppo a weaker documentary as compared to other works about the Syrian crisis, say, For Sama (2019), is the overreliance on its manipulative strings music. 

As a cinephile who is highly sensitive to the use of sound and music in film, it felt excessive and cloying.   Nevertheless, the film remains an important and sobering document.

Grade: B

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Trailer: