|
Edited on Sun Sep-24-06 06:01 PM by HamdenRice
I just watched a film on the Sundance Channel for indpendent films that has to be the strangest 9/11 film yet made, entitled simply "September 11". It has little to do with theories or narratives of what happened in lower Manhattan. In fact, it consists of ten short films by directors from all over the world.
In the first short film by an Iranian, a teacher in a remote Iranian village dedicated to brickmaking, tries to get her rambunctuous class of five or six year olds to settle down and observe a moment of silence for the victims in far away New York. When she asks what major event happened, they respond with a series of local events (two people fell down the well!). When she finds she cannot get them to observe a moment of silence in the classroom, she takes them outside to look at the chimney of the brick factory which looks eerily like the burning twin towers.
In the second film, a French film set in Manhattan, a deaf woman and her sign language translator boyfriend are breaking up on 9/11. After he goes to work, unaware because of her deafness, that the TV is covering the disaster occurring just a few blocks from their apartment, she writes him a break up letter. He arrives home covered in dust. Although it sounds like a film about nothing, the ending of this short film was the most devastating moment in the entire collection.
In the third film by an Egyptian, a famous Lebanese film director converses, in the days after 9/11, with the ghost of an American marine killed in the Beirut barracks bombing and then travels to Arlington cemetary to see the ghost's grave and meet his father and Lebanese girlfriend. There is a very funny scene in which the director and ghost play volleyball on the beach to the surprise of some Lebanese young beachgoers.
In the fourth film, set in the Balkans, two victims of the war in Yugoslavia -- a wheelchair bound veteran and a young woman -- try to carry out their monthly demonstration against war and violence, always done on the 11th of the month, but are told not to do so because of the attack in New York. They eventually do and the other demonstrators change their minds and join in.
In the fifth film, by an African director, a poor boy in Burkino Faso needs money for his gravely ill mother, presumably dying of AIDS, and for school fees. Suddenly, Osama bin Laden appears in their city and the boy and his school mates launch a plan to film and kill bin Laden so they can reap the $25 million reward so the boy can buy medicine for his mother.
In the sixth film, set in London, an exiled Chilean musician and writer writes a letter to the victims of 9/11 reflecting on what happened during Pinochet's coup on September 11, 1972 in his own country.
The seventh film, the most minimalist, by a Mexican director, is mostly blank screen intercut with montages of "jumpers" from the trade center and then the collapse, with an epilogue, presumably from the Koran, "Does God's light guide or blind us?"
The eight film, set in Israel, follows a frantic, aggressive woman TV news reporter covering a terrorist bombing in Jaffa on Jerusalem Street. She tries to get her coverage on live TV only to learn she has been pre-empted by the attack in New York, and she begins mysteriously channeling other terrible events in history that occurred on September 11th.
The ninth film, by an Indian director, based on a true story and set in Brooklyn, follows a Muslim mother's search for her son who has gone missing on September 11th. After coming under suspicion for being complicit in the terrorist attacks, she finds out that her son, a former police cadet, had raced to the World Trade Center to help and died a hero trying to save people as the towers collapsed.
The last film, by Sean Penn, profiles an elderly widower who talks to his deceased wife's clothing. The widower, played by Ernest Borgnine (I didn't even know he was still alive) also complains about the lack of sun in the apartment, which has killed the house plants. As the towers collapse, light is let into the apartment and the plants boom.
All the stories, in retrospect, are very surreal. Although uneven, parts of the film are very moving. Has anyone else seen this film?
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
