NR, 1 min.
Director: James Kelly
I don’t believe there will
be a year when September 11 is not a painful day. It is a day we all feel the
need to reach out to each other and let each other know that we remember the
horrors that occurred in 2001. It was the day the Towers fell, the day we seem
to have lost our final innocence. Perhaps, that’s too dramatic. Innocence is
something born into the world every day. However, even kids who weren’t yet
born on that fateful day seem to have some knowledge of it and the darkness it
cast over our nation.
Cinema has been one of the
primary contributors to our ongoing memory of that day. Many movies have been
made in honor of the fallen citizens and heroes of that day. We seem to yearn
for more understanding and catharsis over those events, even more than a decade
later. It might’ve seemed a year ago that once we got past the 10-year mark, we
might be able to let go just a little. But, the day is here again, and again we
yearn for that understanding.
Some movies can still be too
much for some. I know people who have promised never to watch Paul Greengrass’s
excellent film “United 93”, for good reason. Many still are unaware that Oliver
Stone made a wonderful movie titled “World Trade Center” about two of the
firemen who went into the Towers that day. But, that one too, is pretty tough
to take. And then, there are the numerous documentaries made about that day’s
events. Some are impressionistic, some are factual countdowns. All are hard to
absorb even to this day.
Perhaps then, a better way
to observe and understand this historic date is through short film. “M|W 9|11”
is the shortest film I’ve ever featured on this blog. James Kelly’s animated
film is only one minute in length, yet it so succinctly captures what is
perhaps most important about that day. In 60 seconds it captures the panic and
surprise. It covers the patience and shock of the people trapped within the Towers.
I’m chilled when I see the figure leave the line of observers watching the
flames outside the window to follow the planned escape route only to be stopped
in a line of people also trying to escape.
It also shows that 9/11
started just like every other day for its victims, just as it did for all of us
who remember. I’ll never forget how strange it was to be going off to work and
then hearing over the radio an historical even I would never forget. It didn’t
seem right that such tragedy was occurring while I was going about my regular
routine. With the cliché office moments that open his brief film, Kelly shows
us that it must’ve been much the same for the victims in the Towers.
Finally, Kelly closes his
film on a moment that taps into all of our hearts. The man fights against the
flow of the escape, dooming himself to death, to meet up with a woman. She
turns to reveal she’s pregnant. I’m sorry if I’m spoiling here, but the movie
is only one minute long. They accept their fate as a family. I’m still not sure
why this image digs so deep. The pregnancy makes them a family. It makes their
loss greater. Maybe even more so it makes our loss greater. We didn’t only lose
the people who were in the Towers that day. We lost who they would become. We
lost the children they would create. Their families who did survive lost them,
and possibly further generations of their own family. As the greater American
family we all lost them. Somehow, Kelly finds just the right image to end with
to convey all of this and more. All of this in only a minute. All of that was
lost in even less.
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