The Bridge is A real look at suicide

http://www.budurl.com/bridge ___


If you have ever stood and looked at the Golden Gate Bridge, you know its undeniable effect on the psyche. It is an amazing and (for me) eerie structure.

"The Bridge" is a low budget documentary that delicately, yet honestly presents a common occurrence on the bridge: suicide jumpers. Actual footage of several jumpers is shown in the midst of interviews with loved ones trying to make sense out of the senseless.

http://www.budurl.com/bridge


Effectively, "The Bridge" is tied together by a single story of one individual whose footage is featured through-out the film to be concluded with a quite dramatic sequence.

What I enjoyed most was the interview and story of a young teen boy who decided he wanted to live as he was plummeting to the water below and miraculously survived.

One portion of the film that I would have preferred edited out was the mother and sister of one of the victims. Their interview became obnoxious as the sister kept interrupting the mother.

"The Bridge" dug into me and clenched a nerve. It will stay with me for some time.


Linking the film's varied tragedies is the suicide of Gene Sprague, caught on-camera as he made his final decision. He's a tiny figure in black wandering on the sidewalk, the wind whipping his long black hair as he paces. By accident, Steel filmed Sprague's demise. During the 100 hours he spent filming the bridge, he had a cell phone at hand, ready to call the police. Steel is an expert interviewer, and one notes the unaffected compassion of all of the witnesses. Amid all these people with a slippery hold on life, it was refreshing to see the vitality of Pittsburgh photographer Richard Waters. He is matter of fact about the one jumper he scooped away from "the ultimate short cut to the Next Level": "She started to fight me a little bit, so I just sat on her chest." Walter and Mary Manikow, parents of the late Philip, rest on their couch with their pet dachshund, recounting the emotional torment of their son. To watch the Manikows is to remember that tombstone epitaph from World War I: "If love could have saved him, he wouldn't have died."
http://www.budurl.com/bridge

Category:

Film & Animation

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