There are harrowing moments: who could not be moved by a parent talking about a son’s suicide? But you do not leave the cinema with a better understanding of suicide.
Comment
02/19/07
The Bridge (2006)
69 %
Reviews Counted: 52 Fresh: 36 Rotten:16 Average Rating: 6.5/10
Consensus:
Tactlessly morbid or remarkably sensitive? Deeply disturbing or viscerally fascinating? Critics are divided on Eric Steele’s unique documentary on the Golden Gate Bridge, wonder of the modern world and notorious suicide destination.
Rated: 18
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Theatrical Release: 16-02-2007
Synopsis: Shot over an entire year in 2004, THE BRIDGE is a startling documentary about San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and the people who go there to end their lives. Director Eric Steel and his crew managed to dissuade some of the tortured souls who peered into the abyss during filming, but also saw... [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Director: Eric Steel
Reviews
It’s gripping viewing but you feel like a voyeur of somebody else’s pain. After a while you may feel that you’re watching a particularly scenic snuff film.
02/16/07
Top Critic
This will get flack for being a “snuff” film – but the real tragedy is how suicide is often hidden away. This film brings it out in the open.
02/16/07
Top Critic
The filmmakers' methods are questionable, but the power of the resulting documentary and the importance of the issues it raises are not.
02/16/07
Top Critic
despite the shocking, up-close look, we're no closer to a real understanding of the terrible urge to end it all.
02/16/07
Top Critic
This fascinating, sensitive documentary is an extraordinary film that is both thought-provoking and deeply moving, although it contains images that some viewers may find upsetting.
02/15/07
The whole thing invokes the bodies falling from that other architectural icon on 9/11 – but it’s not clear what is achieved beyond disturbance.
02/14/07
Top Critic
If harrowing footage of deeply disturbed people contemplating a hideous suicide cross-cut with interviews with grieving loved ones who often blame themselves for failing to prevent the tragedy strike you as art - help yourself.
02/14/07
Top Critic
Little more than a snuff film clumsily dressed up as an art house flick.
07/14/07
Tales are dramatic; the interviewees poignant, and the images -- often following bodies all the way down to the water -- are startling and discomfiting.
05/09/07
Top Critic
Two dozen souls, linked by suicide as a seductive, and very visible alternative to unrelenting torment and suffering.
05/04/07
The Bridge avoids reducing its subjects to types, and if the portraits painted are often recognizable -- the person who talks so much about suicide that those around him fail to take him seriously -- they are not repetitive.
03/08/07
While these interviews are affecting, and the movie talks about suicide in a refreshingly straightforward manner, it's the images of these actual deaths that induce horrified gasps.
02/16/07
The results are striking: an emotional and aesthetic whirlpool of horror, fascination, beauty, and resignation that would probably drown lesser movies but that gives The Bridge an eerie power.
02/10/07
Aspires to humanize the people who kill themselves at the Golden Gate Bridge, but ends up mostly reducing its subjects to their flamboyant and very public deaths.
02/10/07
By his use of interviews of friends and family of jumpers, Steel reminds us that no matter how alone some of these people felt, they weren't without people who loved them. It is a tender, powerful work.
02/09/07
As tough as the film is to watch, it's even more difficult to turn away. Even though suicide is prevalent in America %u2014 more than 30,000 occur each year %u2014 it's swept under the rug.
01/18/07
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