9|11 - The Documentary
I couldn't sleep last night after watching 9|11, the "accidental" documentary of the World Trade Center attacks captured by French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet.
To see a clean, business-as-usual lobby full of uniformed people, desks, chairs, and bright sunlight pouring in the windows was like confronting a ghost. Watching the firefighters, quietly slinging oxygen tanks over the shoulders and heading upstairs, and the steely fright in their eyes of their captains, trying to figure out what to do, was like a horror movie - you knew something was about to happen - they shouldn't go "into the woods" - you can yell all you want, but they can't hear you. Your stomach knots up with anxiety as you count the minutes down, wishing they'd just get out.
The sound of bodies smacking the pavement outside, the rumble of the second airplane flying low overhead and into the tower, the horrific sound of Tower 2 with you - the viewer - practically underneath the falling rubble - were more terrifying than words. I simply can't get it out of my head.
The one quote I keep thinking about was one fireman describing the recovery effort the next morning (paraphrasing) - "You'd think with two hundred story office buildings falling to the ground, you'd at least find one desk, one chair, one filing cabinet, something. But the only piece I found that resembled an office setting was half a keypad from a telephone. Everything else was dust."
Six months ago today.
Comments
Can't believe I missed it for "Season on the Brink"
Posted by: Doug H. at March 11, 2002 12:48 PM
Yeah. Sleeplessness. It was like every bad dream I have ever had (including all those 1980s nuclear-war ones I had after watching Testament and The Day After), except it was all the more horrifying because it was real. You really got the sense of being disoriented by what was happening, as if you were really there, trying to make sense of an incredibly surreal and deadly situation. I have to compliment the editors for resisting the impulse to be sensationalistic and keep the story focused on the subject; the incredible experiences of Engine 7, Ladder 1 - and the amazing fact that, despite being the closest fire house to the WTC and the first to respond, none of their firefighters were killed. I do suspect that there is still a definitive documentary to be done on the subject of this infamous day - we didn't really see the reactions of ordinary New Yorkers, WTC survivors, families, or find out what was happening behind the scenes at the mayor's office, police, city hall or with FEMA or other agencies...which was beyond the scope of this film but the "full" story has yet to emerge..as well as placing the story in its full geopolitical context.
Posted by: AJ Kandy at March 11, 2002 12:57 PM
Put me into the couldn't sleep category as well. It's continued over into today with some of the similar feelings I had before. Work, again, seems trivial for the moment.
Posted by: Shawn H at March 11, 2002 4:53 PM
