Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

11'09"01 – September 11 (2002)

Average user rating

1 review

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

As a riposte to the ideologues and compassion raiders who were first out of the gates after September 11, this collection of responses by 11 film-makers asserts an ambiguous plurality of perspectives on the tragedy. Here are images which resist the absolutist designs of both Bush and Bin Laden. To the extent that it is its own message, this may be that rarity, a portmanteau film that exceeds the sum of its parts. Inevitably, though, the parts themselves vary wildly in achievement and approach. Makhmalbaf and Ouedraogo filter the events through the eyes of children (in Iran and Burkino Faso), touching on the irony of Third World innocents consuming a First World tragedy. Others revisit the tragedies of other nations: Tanovic shows 'mourners in arms' in Srebrenica, Loach remembers the Chilean victims of US sponsored terrorism (easily the most lucid inclusion), while Gitaï indulges the hysteria of a Jerusalem suicide bombing in a hectoring demonstration of competitive horror. Taking another tack, Iñárritu recapitulates the Word Trade Center's demolition through a sound montage, suggesting that the exploitation of spectacle and revelation is a hoodwinking device. Lelouch and Penn also fasten on experiences of sensory deprivation, the former pointlessly, the latter, with a bereaved Ernest Borgnine, mawkishly. Which leaves Nair's episode, a straightforward true story of immigrant New Yorkers' loss and cultural prejudice; Chahine's, a clumsy but rumbustious debate with the dead; and Imamura's endpiece, a gnomic reflection on holy war as once fought by the Japanese.

Author: NB

Time Out Film Guide

Email Tweet Share

User reviews of this film

yduric said...

Posted on Sep 01 2007 02:40 A unique and highly commendable piece of work, indeed. Although, as your reviewer(s), pointed it out, the 11 short films composing this film vary in their quality, they all share one common merit: that of being fundamentally honest, always avoiding complacency or over-dramatization. Moreover, and what adds to the merit of this film, all the 11 directors have 'played by the rules' given to them, that is to say that the only constraint was that each short film last 11 minutes, 9 seconds and one frame,and otherwise, they had total freedom of expression, which they all have plainfully and masterfully exercised and given a very unique multi-angled and multi-cultural vision The impressive result is that in this film, these visions do never give the impression of a dijointed film, but, on the contrary, give a very stong impression of being complementary between themselves which is in itself a tribute to the attempt of different cultures to understand each other instead of coming to a clash, as some people wished at the time the film was released.

Report as inappropriate