ironhorse_iv Review of The Bridge

The Bridge (I) (2006)

The Bridge is a bridge to nowhere. It's doesn't help prevent suicide. It's just a snuff film.

[7/10 · 8 March 2013]

As of this writing, the Golden Gate Bridge continues to celebrate its birthday year after year. Open on May 27, 1937, the bridge located at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean serves as a gateway for many Bay Area people to connect each other, by driving on its structure. The bridge links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to Marin County. The San Francisco landmark is also famous for being the number 1 spot in the world where people commit suicide by jumping to their deaths from its walkways. Throughout its history, the bridge has averaged about 19 jumpers per year. It's already have pass the 2,000 people mark. That's a dangerous alarming fact that proves that something need to be done to prevent these acts to happen. Here is another fact, the movie came out in 2006, yet San Francisco hasn't yet put up a barrier. While not guaranteed to eliminate all suicides, physical barriers are said to be generally effective in significantly decreasing attempts at any given location. Interestingly, in his original plans for the bridge, architect Joseph Strauss designed the railings to be nearly six feet tall as a way to discourage jumpers. By the time the bridge was finally constructed, the railings were lowered to a mere four feet and, as we know, many suicides have followed after that. In the film, 2004 was one of the largest suicide year that the Golden Gate Bridge have ever saw and Rookie documentation Eric Steel film most of the jumpers. He film every daylight minute of 2004 using multiple digital cameras, before editing detailed footage of jumpers with interview footage of family members and friends of the deceased explaining why they might have killed themselves. The movie score is chilling, and only by that, it makes his film look like a tribute honoring the dead 'art' film documentary rather than a modern day snuff film. I love the film seek answers to the suicide rather than saying they coward way out. Suicide is not always based on outside circumstances. You have the some of the most financially stable, well off people in the world who are depressed. It is mental and unless you went through severe depression, it is easy for you to call people cowards. Going through mental issues/illness takes a lot of courage and some people do not make it, just like any other illness. Sadly, I still have to agree that it's still a snuff film that exploitation actual suicides for dramatic tension, attention-getting money grabbing release for people to buy to watch real people die on film. Steel never once question why Golden Gate Bridge wasn't equipped with suicide barriers, nor does he deal with San Francisco's political disregard to stopping them. This was sadly needed. At less, Steel got a survivor in for an interview but rather than focus on his life turn around, the movie just focus on his attempt at death. Steel did alert authorities whenever unusual behavior became apparent, if the person being film might jump. Still, he might have didn't intervene as much as he says he did, because the film has so perfect good shots of the jumpers jumping into the bay. For a quick fall of four seconds, jumpers hit the water at around 75 mph or about 120 km/h. Most jumpers die from impact trauma. The few who survive the initial impact generally drown or die of hypothermia in the cold water. He has some pretty amazing shots of it, for an action that happen so quick. He's clearly been eyeing them for a while, why couldn't he save more people than he did. Did he allow people to die for a good death footage? It's a moral debate when the audience watch the film. The last jump is the most disturbing. It clear that they been tracking him, but did absolutely nothing to save him, then after he supplied them with the money shot death, they tracked down his friends, and got them on film. Worse, Steel shows so many jumps over the course of the movie that we run the risk of becoming desensitized to actual death. When the cameras linger on pedestrians, it begs us to ask which one will become the jumper. It's a sick game that makes you think that everybody is suicidal. The film was inspired by an article in the New Yorker magazine, and there's an undeniable power in the accretion of detail and insight into what motivates suicides, but it doesn't help the living knowing that their love ones death hasn't prevent any future deaths since then. That's pretty despicable.