11'09''01 - September 11

"September 11" consists of 11 segments relating to the 9/11 attacks. The only overtly political ones are Ken Loach's, in which a Chilean man reminds Americans that September 11 is also the anniversary of the coup in Chile, and Mira Nair's, about a Pakistani-American family suspected of being terrorists. Most of the segments are basically slice-of-life stories about how people got affected by the attacks: Sean Penn's casts Ernest Borgnine as a man caring for a flower, Amos Gitai's looks at a bombing in Israel, and Samira Makhmalbaf's focuses on some Afghan schoolchildren.

The main thing that I derived from the movie is that, because of the impact that the attacks had on everyone, it was the one chance to unite the whole world. Unfortunately, we all saw what Bush did instead. It should have been a wake-up call, but it became an excuse for extreme ignorance.

Overall, this movie should prompt you to think. Bad things have always been happening, but people do what they can to go on. Is there any hope for our country?

The September 11 film is a separate but collective effort by 11 filmmakers who were given $400.000 each to make a film 11 minutes, 9 seconds and 1 frame. The formula is not new, neither are eternal flames as grave markers.

Each director was given creative license to make their film. The result is 11 viewpoints on a host of angles regarding to the suicide aircraft attack on the World Trade Center. The facts of atrocities committed in war should come as no surprise to anyone from any country. Americans are as aware of the damage of war as other nations. War is not good for anyone. When men play war with guns people are killed, innocently. The most interesting inclusion is the Israeli journalist trying to report on a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Her story gets bumped because of what's happening in New York. The story is absurd showing how powerful war and media is, and how far from peace the world is. Showing the film reveals how clever the media is in pitting nation against nation and cultivating a fake sense of patriotism. An aftermath of the film could be, don't buy into hating your brother and sister and show some compassion for all people for all injustice everywhere.

It was clear right from the beginning that 9/11 would inspire about as many films as World War II and Vietnam combined; however, there is certainly a big danger that most of these films to come are about as good (or rather: bad) as Pearl Harbor. It is a great luck that the first international release about 9/11 is not a cheesy love story starring a bunch of pretty faces, but a collective work of 11 directors from the entire world.

I'm not intending to say that all 11 episodes are great (Youssef Chahine's, for example, has a needless prologue with too many cuts and Shohei Imamura's has a really bizarre ending) or that the segments are in the right order (Imamura's, being the only one not referring directly to the Twin Towers, should open the film, not end it, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu's should be the last one instead, as it's the most impressive one). But it is an impressing effort and an interesting portrayal of the way other parts of the world react to the collapse of the twin towers.

Consider Samira Makhmalbaf's opening segment, in which an Afghan teachers tries to explain to her pupils what happened in New York and unsuccessfully suggests a one-minute silence. Or Idrissa Ouedraogo's part (which features a bin Laden-double so much resembling the real one that you'll be shocked when you see him, I promise), in which 5 boys muse about good things that can be done with the reward put out on Laden.

There's a surprisingly good (and extremely angry) segment by Ken Loach about a man from Chile talking about what he calls "our Tuesday September 11" - that September 11 in 1973 when their elected president Allende was killed and Pinochet installed his dictatorship - with the generous help from Henry Kissinger and the CIA. This could have become a terrible effort in Anti-Americanism, but it did become a sad tale and shares my recognition for the best segment with Inarritu's (mainly sound impressions and phone calls from the hijacked planes to a black screen, sometimes a few pictures of people falling down the WTC and finally a collapsing tower, ending with the screen brightening up and one question appearing) and Amos Gitai's about a hysterical reporter trying desperatly to get on air after a car bomb exploded in Tel Aviv (hard to recognize, but this one is a masterpiece of choreography).

All these different segments (I haven't mentioned yet Claude Lelouch's about a deaf girl, Danis Tanovic's about a demonstration of the Women of Srebrenica, Mira Nair's - strange, but it takes an Indian director to make the part that is probably most appealing to Western tastes - about a Muslim family whose son is under a terrible suspicion after 9/11 and Sean Penn's with Ernest Borgnine (yes, Ernest Borgnine) as a widower leading the most depressive life one can imagine) add up to a unique film not easy to watch and hard to forget. I am sure this film will be a classic known to everyone thirty years from now. I hope it will be remembered for starting a long tradition of world cinema movies. But, alas, it's far more probable it will be remembered as a one-film-only effort. And as the one of the few 9/11 movies made by then that don't reduce this terrible event to a love story with a happy end just to please the audience.

French production in which leading film directors from 11 countries were invited to create 11-minute short films conveying their reflections on the events of September 11.

The film segments vary widely in content and quality. Two allude to U.S. complicity in terrorist acts (in Chile against Allende, who died on September 11, 1973, depicted in the segment by British director Ken Loach; and in Palestine by U.S.-backed Israelis, shown in the segment from Egyptian director Youssef Chahine). Two more recall other destructive acts (a Palestinian suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, shot by Israeli director Amos Gitan; the Japanese "holy war" against the west in WW II, by Shohei Imamura).

Ironies abound in several stories. Shadows that darken the New York City apartment of a grieving old man suddenly disappear as the World Trade towers telescope to the ground in Sean Penn's piece, bringing the man momentary joy. But in this bright light he can finally see that his wife is really gone. In Mira Nair's film, based on a real incident, a missing young man, also in New York City, the son of a Pakistani family, is first presumed to be a fugitive terrorist, but later he proves to a hero who sacrificed himself trying to save others in the towers.

There are poignant moments dotted throughout. Loach has his exiled Chilean man quote St. Augustine, to the effect that hope is built of anger and courage: anger at the way things are, courage to change them. Imamura tells us that there is no such thing as a holy war. Samira Makhmalbaf shows a teacher with her very young Afghan schoolchildren, exiled in Iran, trying to tell them about the events that have just transpired in New York. But they are understandably more impressed with a major event in their refugee camp, where two men have fallen into a deep well, one killed, the other sustaining a broken leg. This is comprehensible tragedy on a grand scale for the 6 year olds.

Idrissa Ouedraogo, from Burkina Faso, creates a drama in which the son of an ailing woman spots Osama bin Laden in their village and gathers his buddies to help capture the fugitive terrorist, in order to get the $25 million U. S. reward. He tells his friends not to let any of the adults know their plans, for the older folks would merely waste the money on cars and cigarettes, while he plans to help his mother and others who are sick and destitute.

It is Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (maker of "Amores Perros") who provides by far the most powerful and chilling segment, one that, for the most part, shows only a darkened screen with audio tape loops of chanting and voices and occasional thudding sounds. Brief visual flashes gradually permit us to see bodies falling from the high floors of the towers, and it dawns on us that the thuds are these bodies hitting the ground. The sequence ends with elegiac orchestral music and a still shot, bearing a phrase first shown only in Arabic, then with a translation added: "Does God's light guide us or blind us?" (In various languages with English subtitles) Grade: 8/10 (B+). (Seen on 10/31/04). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

Given the nature and origin of the 11 filmakers it is not surprising that this film is at best neutral in its stance towards America. Probably the most 'anti' segment comes from Ken Loach who is definitely not towing the British New Labour party line. Although those events of a year ago are shocking and painful to most Americans and most spectators who saw them unfold live through CNN etc. the majority of the writers and directors choose to show that tragedy is not an American monopoly. Should anybody be surprised that these 3000 deaths are given the same weight elsewhere as the West gives to thousands Tutsi, Tamil, Bosnian, Chilean, Kurdish (need we go on) victims. If this was a 'wake-up' call for the States then it is equally tragic that in the subsequent 12 months the Israel/Palestine impasse is further from a solution while George Bush Jnr. would rather wreak revenge than make the world a safer place. I think many of the contributors wonder where the idealism of the Founding Fathers went, and why America orignally built as a bastion of freedom, justice and tolerance now sees its self-interest paramount while the Third World wonders where the next drink, meal or bullet is coming from.