11 septembre, au cœur du chaos

My first thought was, I can't believe it's been 20 years. I was in high school in 2001 and I can still remember the feeling of absolute shock and a complete disconnection to the events happening in America. This raw POV documentary with no overlaid narration brought it all back. Such amazing footage that would have just been someones holiday videos.

I've seen most of the coverage of 9/11 attack, especially New York. In my opinion the work by the two French brothers, while mostly centered on FDNY, is the most comprehensive in terms of luck in being in the right place, and post event editing and narrative. Falling Man, is another that should not be missed since it is so troublingly poignant, and one can not watch it without considering what we the viewer might be forced to do in the same situation. Nat. Geo. And Nova have great work on how the buildings fell which either will convince the conspiracy theorists or leave them wallowing in their nonsense.

There is also some great work on the disfunction between the US air traffic control and the pentagon, as well of course the shocking incompetence of the CIA and FBI in ignoring the dozen of red flags going back to the 1990s (and experts say they are even more politicized and bigger bureaucratic messes today).

"Life under Attack" is a great addition, assembling a sizable amount of raw footage shot by amateur bystanders woven in with more professional raw footage from news crews. I recommend it.

This is how proper documentary should be done: no interviews, no commentaries from politicians, CIA or news anchors. It contains only raw footage filmed by New Yorkers. This film really conveys the horror and the uncertainty of the whole situation, it's certainly the best documentary about 9/11 I've ever seen.

Whilst not a technically groundbreaking documentary, the importance and power of the mostly new images of what regular people shot with their cameras on 9/11 is the closest you'll get to having been in New York on that day and shows the side that this kind of events tend to not show: the one of the regular people trapped in them. The only thing that it can't really transmit is the fear of not knowing what was going to happen next (that the ones that we saw it live, even in the TV news, will never forget), because everybody now knows how events unfolded. A must see.

I keep thinking I've seen all the 9/11 footage there is, but then new documentaries keep proving me that wrong. This is worth watching for some (potentially) new footage and viewpoints alone, although there is still a lot of familiar shots throughout.

Most affecting moment might have been a newsreader commenting on how hard the plane collision replay was to watch, because now, all these years later, I've been so desensitised from seeing the collisions so many times. I assume others would feel the same in regards to being desensitised, and it drives home the idea of how different things would have been before that day.

Presentation wise this does a solid but not quite amazing job at constructing a narrative out of almost just amateur footage. It's not the best 9/11 documentary out there, but it's a pretty good one.