As most of the world’s attention was diverted by the pandemic last May, the people of Gaza were living through the “bloodiest escalation of hostilities” since 2014, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. This “desperately upsetting” documentary, directed by Britain’s Michael Winterbottom (The Trip, Greed) and the Palestinian filmmaker Mohammed Sawwaf, focuses on the children killed: no fewer than 60 children lost their lives in just 11 days; the overall death toll was at least 243, according to Gaza’s health ministry. In some cases, whole families were “all but wiped out” in a single air strike, “leaving only, in one instance, a pair of grandparents behind”. In other cases, shrapnel “took away a single oldest brother, or a youngest sister, an unborn baby”. The film “doesn’t rage or rant”, but is instead a “litany of losses, gravely scored to Max Richter’s liturgical music”. There is “no way you could watch it unmoved”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.