Narrated by Robert DeNiro the documentary called 9/11, filmed by Jules and Gideon Naudet, two French filmmakers, may become one of most poignant and lasting images of the tragedy. Shocking in all its details, not because of any graphic images – its interestingly void of such shots – but because it shows us all how what it was like to be right there. Horrified in front of our televisions as one News anchor after another tried to relay what information they could and grapple for words, they still could not convey what was really going on.
Never before have we experienced the sound of body hitting the ground after an 80-plus story fall, and it sounds like a gunshot. We flinch as the firefighters jump at the sound. While no image of a body hitting the ground, or even falling, are shown, the sound is enough to touch your soul. As one firefighter puts it, “what could be going on up there that jumping is the better option?”
The documentary starts on June 9th where they begin following a probby, a probationary firefighter in his first year, as he was set to prove to his whole company he could make it on the job. Little did he know his engine was the closest to the event that was going to change the world.
They called him a “white cloud.” Meaning whenever this probby was on duty, there were no fires. The rookie scrubs, washes, changes sheets for the vets while they play jokes on him. And for all that, he gets $672 for his first two weeks on the job. $672 for two weeks worth of work in New York City? “You can’t even buy a six pack for that,” one of the vets jokes.
Finally his first fire, a car fire, seems to be out in just moments. But he was happy just to spray water. Back at the station they joke with him again, “it was just a flame, not a real fire.”
The filmmakers even mention at one point that they are making the best cooking documentary as they film a firefighter cooking for what seemed to be the hundredth time. No fires. But be careful what you wish for, one fireman says. The fires will come. Come it does.
8am. A report of gas vapors in the street sends Engine 7 out to the streets. Standing there, measuring the air with gas sensors, the first plane comes by. Tower 1 is wounded.
While the documentary comes off as touching, some of it was clichéd. Some of the firefighters recite lines that seemed forced and not at all heartfelt. A firefighter sitting on a stool says, “until then I didn’t know how evil, evil could be.” The film was drama enough. Some of the added lines were a bit overdone.
Still, seeing body bags only half-full, and folded over, strikes a deep cord. One can only imagine what partial mangled body was inside, and what horrible hell that person lived through in the final 3 seconds of their life. In that short time, in that horrific moment is there time to think of a loved one? To cry out a prayer learned in Sunday school as a child? Or is it be best to think there was not enough time to even understand or comprehend what was going on and the life just ends.
Like many I’m not going to forget the moment I realized what was going on. My experience was nowhere near unique. With an eight-month old at home I was still learning to be a father. I wondered what some of those around me at work were going to say to their kids when they saw them. How where they going to explain this and make them feel safe? I ICQ’d back and forth with Taranis many times throughout the morning, trying to make sense of anything.
Documentaries like 9/11 show us new images. Images that will surely get mixed with our own memories of the moment, that for each of us were full of fear and uncertainty. Images of the buildings as they fell with a painful scream all their own. Day turned to night then slowly back to white again. A country turned to fear, then slowly back to strength again.