The Bridge - Il ponte dei suicidi

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.

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.

In 2004 director Eric Steel set up cameras to cover the pedestrian side of the Golden Gate Bridge. During this year he capture many people walking along the bridge, tourists, people going to work, people taking in the scenery and some people who had come to commit suicide by jumping from the bridge. His film explores the backgrounds and motivations to the people that we see jump to their deaths.

There is a real question within this film and it is one that is only really touched on by one person (not Steel himself I note) and that is the distance provided by the camera as we observe but do not stop the deaths we see. The film doesn't let you build to facing this as the opening credits are a man hopping up onto the barrier and then jumping to his death; it is here where you decide if you want to watch the rest because it is a strange experience where I at once felt dirty but also distant. I'm not suggesting Steel did nothing to prevent people he saw acting suspiciously from jumping but it is hard to have so much footage of the last guy with the long hair in particular and then follow him to the water and death.

The act of looking at it through a camera is weirdly distancing and I felt wrong watching these things while sitting in my warm front room with a reasonably good life, physical and mental health. This distance remained for me in the film itself as I was strangely emotionally distant from the jumpers and their families. The lack of message and structure doesn't help this and I suppose it is a danger of making the film the way he did because he was very much at the "mercy" of what happens as to how his film turned out. If we had had a year of spoilt rich kids then of course the musings would have been very different. This is also a strength though because the film does provide food for thought in the discussions with the families and friends; I found myself thinking about the topic and this is really what you need to be doing because in terms of substance and message the film does rather sit back and let the viewers do what they want.

This is a real shame because it means the most arresting images and footage are the jumpers themselves and it is hard to avoid watching but also not wanting to at the same time. I don't want to accuse of it of not backing up this footage with substance but I'm afraid that is where I am going with this. The documentary doesn't really explore the themes so much as the individuals and the film is rather repetitive. The lack of emotion drawn from me didn't help me get involved in the people and the things that made me engaged seemed to be mostly happening in my head rather than on the screen.

Overall then this is certainly an interesting film but this interest comes mostly from the viewer rather than the film. The suicides are shocking but yet hypnotic and also morally challenging as you sit there as part of a paying audience watching people die from a distance of space and time. The film is nowhere near good or insightful enough to totally justify the use of this footage and, while I think the footage is more than enough to grab viewers' attention, it is not that great a documentary if you were to watch it with these scenes removed – and that for me says quite a lot about the film.

Initially this documentary hit the headlines with complaints of the company that own the Golden Gate Bridge stating they were deceived that the director and his crew were filming "Great American Landmarks" and that they were merely filming stock footage for the project. I believe this is an acceptable lie, being that if someone posed you a question asking if they could film your property because of the notoriety of the popularity of it as a suicide spot, you would decline the offer! That aside, this documentary does feature real deaths and (in the press screening I attended in the UK) they are uncensored-albeit a large splash rather than blood splatter, which is not brilliant viewing material for those of weak dispositions, but does cause very interesting discussion points around the reason as to why those who choose to jump do so. We are subjected to watch a number of jumpers of various ages plunge the four seconds to their death by means of a hand-held camera from a distance. As filmmakers, a moral question is raised as to why they just filmed the jumpers and didn't prevent it from happening. My understanding of this is that the director did actually prevent the majority from jumping (evident in the film) but others were simply too quick to save. One of the witnesses interviewed from the reported 100 hours + of film stock, actually comments as to why he photographed a woman about to jump before attempting to save her. He says that any nature film cameraman would carry on filming, even if a tiger was running straight at them as a) objectively this makes brilliant aesthetics for the finished product and b) looking upon any act through a viewfinder makes any event slightly unreal and psychologically you are compelled not to anything until 'reality' slaps you in the face! Watching the documentary some of the suicides (especially those shot static, long distance) look like they were captured 'by accident'.

The witnesses interviewed in the film, including some of the jumper's parents and close family, are very brave to give their thoughts and opinions as to why they believe the jumpers committed the final act. As an audience we feel every emotion conveyed by their friends and family. The interviews and deaths are intertwined with montage of beautiful shots of the bridge showing it as a very romantic setting, not too dissimilar to the Humber Bridge in Hessle (near Hull), England-which is also notoriously known for it's high suicide rates, but what the Humber estuary lacks is the sheer awe of the surrounding landscape and slightly better achievements of engineering. A gradual picture is built up of the bridge, we see it objectively, as a constant unchanging structure ruling the landscape it inhabits. We are shown the bridge by day and by night, during busy summer periods, during misty autumn and winter mornings, as a tourist hot-spot; thousands of tourists walking across it, people playfully mimicking jumping from the bridge or hanging from it to scare their friends, visitors painting it, as a working bridge; workmen climbing it for maintenance and drivers going to and from work. The observation is clear and obvious, again touched upon by the interviewees, the jumpers (like everyone else) are wooed by the sheer beauty of the bridge.

The only flaw in the film is that there is no expert witness (i.e. a psychiatrist or doctor) interviewed which would solidify the documentaries main objective at focusing on mental illness as the reason for getting to the point of giving up and as a by product, tarnishing a beautiful setting.

On a positive note the filmmakers do not romanticise the jumpers in any way, we are merely observing how people fall, (all individual styles), even if we are made to keep returning to one particular person, Gene, a little too often. Also, one the key interviewees has the power to make you laugh and make you cry within an instant and it is this person who gives the strongest arguments towards the reasons for why the jumpers do it.

As a whole, the film does actually achieve what the director supposedly made the owners of the bridge initially believe he was making in the first place-document an important historical American landmark as a living entity! The main focus, however, falls (no pun intended) onto the jumpers that dwell on the bridge. There is a fitting tribute to the jumpers at the end, all being credited by individual name and when they jumped during 2004.

This documentary is plainly and simply a year in the life of a bridge. It should be viewed by all as it is an interesting (if only scratching the surface) piece on the subject of mental illness. It is refreshing to view an unbiased documentary like this (such as Grizzly Man), in an increasingly politically motivated documentary age (Inconvenient Truth, etc). Maybe the reason why this is hitting the headlines is because the truth scares. If any change is to be made, it is the safety barrier of the walkway, although this is NOT suggested once in the film.

It's interesting where people choose to target their criticism of this film. Whether the director was there with his camera or not, the individuals would have done what they did. If setting up a camera to record the acts is morally questionable, is talking about it? Reporting it? Discussing it? It's clear that many don't want to face this issue for a variety of reasons that are both universal and specific to the Bay Area. Suicide is a difficult subject and whatever your point of view—"it's a sin" or "it's a release"—the interviews that the director exacts from survivors (in every sense of the word in one case) are the real soul of this movie.

People don't want to talk about it and communities don't want to take responsibility for those faced with mental illness. In the Bay Area there has been a controversial proposal to fence the Bridge so that it won't be so "easy" for the suicidal. This film makes it clear there's nothing easy about jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

The film doesn't raise the barricade controversy and the fact that there are patrols on the Bridge to identify those at risk. I think that was a wise choice because what the movie ends up being about is the sad, horrifying fact that those who leave their families or friends (or their communities at large) leave misery and apprehension and doubt. Perhaps, that's the point. Unable to cope with their own internal conflicts, they transfer it to others.

I don't remember a work of art dealing with the subject in such a direct manner leaving out psychological justification and medical terminology so we could pretend ignorance. From Shakespeare to Thelma and Louise, in our culture there's a false honor given to suicide. This movie makes it very clear that no honor or relief is ever the consequence of self-destruction.

The beauty of the area is so compelling here and the photography is just sensational. The opening sequence in particular, intercutting windsurfers with views of the subject, both the Bridge and a jumper.

As well, the range of people interviewed (casual witnesses, rescuers and the grim faces of family members and friends) is quite astonishing. Just when my gut would relax and I gained some composure, another sequence would start the dreadful realization that more agony was coming, more lives brutalized.

I found all aspects of this movie exceptional. Those interviewed, I hope, feel well treated by the film. I felt like there was great sensitivity and protection offered by the director. No one is blamed. There is no agenda for fences or better parenting or increased funding for mental health. The cinematography extraordinary. The soundtrack was perfect with the exception of the final song. It didn't have the weight of what preceded it. I'm not sure anything could have captured in summary what we had just seen.

I did find it hard to watch. Whether I needed to see it is debatable. But I certainly won't fault the filmmakers for doing it. Will it draw more people to jump? That remains to be seen. Will it stop anyone from jumping? I don't think so.

The film exposes the negligence we have towards those who want to die and how threatened we are by their state of mind. In one long anguished monologue, a woman reveals what she wished she would have done the night a friend said goodbye. I hope her message doesn't get lost in the hoopla about footage of people jumping or how the camera came to be set up that year. In agony, the woman states she will never ignore another person's need for help out of embarrassment for herself or embarrassment for the person making the threat. She will act to intervene the next time. And so will I.

what brings a human being to intentionally finish his own life, to commit suicide? This documentary deeply analyzes the dynamics that pushed 24 people to kill themselves in 2004, jumping from the icon Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The movie premiered today at the new Rome Film Festival and I must say I was amazed by the accurate and shocking job the director did, putting a camera for one year long looking the bridge. He achieved a moving documentary that reflects the reality without being pathetic, always balancing the story, without being banal or simply an evil way of being voyeuristic. This movie aims to be almost anthropological in its precision, and really leaves the audience asking questions, they go out of the theatre thinking, and this is a great achievement because the theme itself is more than a taboo. The interviews of friends and parents are beyond easy interpretations, they show how sometimes life can affect human beings and change other people's life, that not always is possible to find the responsibilities or to answer the question:why did he do that? Extremely interesting, strong, but really worth it.