Life Support

Zarah Sultana5.0

A vital and heartbreaking documentary bearing witness to the genocide in Gaza, the courage of health workers fighting to preserve life, and the destruction of everything central to it.One day those complicit will be held to account for their crimes.From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free 🇵🇸

Harry724.0

The Gaza genocide is shockingly still ongoing to the point in which documentaries about the atrocity now have a lot of material to cover. "Life Support" is the broadest one in terms of scope I have seen, capturing the healthcare crisis there to a naturally harrowing degree.This follows several international doctors, mainly from the UK who are some of the only people Israel allow to access Gaza, giving how they banned international press from entering. The remaining hospitals are overcrowded and short of supplies, a problem only made worse as Israel ban more essential items like breast milk and even go as far as to bombing and invading hospitals- with unfounded claims they are Hamas centres.These doctors are therefore witnesses of their atrocities, and with this footage proof that Israel is commiting war crimes with their deliberate targeting of civilians, especially those in a critical state. It's impossible not to feel anger watching this at how justice still hasn't been brought when the signs of genocide are so dammingly obvious.But the power of watching docs and films like this are that they give you hope for humanity, that there are still good people in this world who refuse to look away, and instead put their own lives on the line to save these lives.It's easy to give a Gaza documentary 5 stars because of the emotions it stirs up, but I do have a few issues with it. It's a fairly generic talking head doc, where as most of the subjects are white, there's a feeling of them being white saviours. I wish there was some more time given to interview Gazan doctors, and perhaps to give the patients more of a voice. The doctors say this isn't about them, but the unnecessary volume of their own not always relevant anecdotes made me feel differently.Otherwise, this is still engaging and shocking seeing the extent of the evil of this genocide, and of those doing what they can to reduce the damage.

JohnLithgows

Most of us will scroll past images of the genocide in Palestine on a daily basis, to sit through them for 90 minutes with accounts from doctors surrounding is a far more sobering, and far more intelligently handled way of receiving this information. The majority of the interviewed doctors are white and, as the filmmakers mentioned in the Q&A, this is essentially a way to hold a western audiences hand through the atrocity such that they will not be able to claim this is “false Hamas data” (which all data is when the only journalists allowed in these areas are Palestinian). Someone in the audience loudly stated that the film omits Hamas’ “provocation” on October 7th, this is simply not true, but it is also not the focus of the film. Any number of civilian deaths through violence is of course a tragedy but you must first consider the word “liberation” and then consider some facts like the fact that the IDF is specifically and directly stopping baby formula from entering Gaza. Babies are purposefully being starved. Neither myself nor the other (mostly middle/upper middle class) viewers are the audience for this film, this is a film that, as the filmmakers brought up, needs to be put in front of policy makers, of unions, etc. That does not mean you should not seek it out. Please go seek it out. Please support it. This is not a film (which is to say that I do not have the heart to review this as “a film”) but a desperate plea to stopping this ongoing genocide and everyone who can listen must listen.