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MOVIES / ON DVD / SEPTEMBER 11
September 11

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September 11 (2003)

77%
71%
70%
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77 %
Reviews Counted: 57 Fresh: 44  Rotten:13 Average Rating: 6.6/10

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 2 hrs 15 mins

Synopsis: A reaction piece to the United States' terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, this controversial film calls upon eleven directors from various countries to contribute 11-minute 9-second films about the event. Variously political, violent, disturbing, abstract, opinionated,... A reaction piece to the United States' terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, this controversial film calls upon eleven directors from various countries to contribute 11-minute 9-second films about the event. Variously political, violent, disturbing, abstract, opinionated, angered, or forgiving, each film is drastically different from the next. Starting the set is Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf's touching short which focuses on school children being taught about the incident. With very short attention spans and too little understanding about where the United States is located geographically or what skyscrapers look like, the clearest message the children receive is that they will need to build bomb shelters for fear the U.S. will attack them in retaliation. Another short, directed by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (AMORES PERROS), is composed nearly entirely of sounds--prayers and chants and street noise recorded by news outlets that morning--while the screen remains black. Very brief glimpses of victims falling from the towers' soaring windows are the only break to the blackness while the layering of sound mounts to a chaotic fever pitch. In a film by American director Sean Penn, a very old man living in a New York apartment finds his bedroom filled with sunlight as the towers come down. A lighter take on the tragedy, from African director Idrissa Ouedraogo, shows how a group of boys in a small town learn of the $25 million reward for Osama Bin Laden's capture and set their hearts on finding him in order to buy medicine for one boy's ailing mother. Perhaps the most emotional and compassionate contributions come from Bosnia's Danis Tanovic and England's Ken Loach, who both offer vows of solidarity from the widows of Srebrenica and the victims of Chile's brutal dictatorship, respectively. Rounding out the omnibus is a bizarrely appropriate anti-war film by Japanese director Shohei Imamura (THE EEL), in which a traumatized WWII veteran reacts to the atrocities he's seen by rejecting humanity and behaving like a snake. [More]

Genre: Foreign Films

Director: Danis Tanovic, Ken Loach, Shohei Imamura, Mira Nair, Samira Makhmalbaf, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Sean Penn, Amos Gitai, Youssef Chahine, Claude Lelouch

DVD Info

Release:

Feb 10, 2006

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Region (unknown)
  • Keep Case
  • Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround - Arabic, Bosnian, English, French, Hebrew, Japanese
  • Subtitles - English, French

Additional Release Material:

  • Trailers

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Ratings Image
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The most forceful contribution is by Ken Loach.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/15/08
Philip French
Observer [UK]
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2/5

Ken Loach’s entry aside, this is a self-indulgent bid to wring arthouse kudos from tragedy.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/30/06
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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N/A

Right now the egoism of the artist's vision is inescapably crass.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/07/03
Sight and Sound
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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3/5

The most notable contribution is from Ken Loach.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/06/03
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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N/A

There is, however, a genuine reason for not giving the collection wide distribution. Most of it isn't any good.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/25/02
Sam Jordison
FilmFour.com
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3/5

The resulting collaboration offers some diverse geographical, cultural, and artistic perspectives on those tragic events.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/08/02
Tom Dawson
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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B+

Seeing September 11 now, five years after its completion, is a reminder not only of the visceral terror from that day, but also of the sense of shared global humanity that flourished briefly in its wake.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/29/07
Marc Mohan
Oregonian
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4/5

Eminently worth seeing, arguing with, and thinking about.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/27/06
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com
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3/5

No review available.

comment Comment
10/08/05
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
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3/5

the best segments are from the most obscure directors... the big guns mostly strike out

Full Review | comment Comment
10/08/04
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com
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N/A

An ungainly, intermittently harrowing omnibus filled with moments of piercing sorrow and rage.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/07/04
Peter Rainer
New York Magazine
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N/A

Some were reported to have expressed very un-American sentiments, but that wasn't the case at all.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/16/04
Jon Popick
Planet Sick-Boy
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3/4

'A pesar de lo fallido de algunos trabajos, es un sólido trabajo que muestra las diferentes reacciones de grupos étnicos e intelectuales a una grave tragedia'

Full Review | comment Comment
01/09/04
Jorge Avila Andrade
Moviola
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B

You'll get a provocative picture of how a variety of filmmakers reacted to the events of Sept. 11.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/28/03
Robert Denerstein
Denver Rocky Mountain News
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N/A

An uneven but telling document.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/28/03
Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post
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3/4

The results are not monumental, but they are a variety of sober responses to the tragedy that help place the event in a global context.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/14/03
Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
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3.5/5

The short films range in quality and style from wonderful absurdist metaphor ... to breathtakingly dumb metaphor ... to hilarious satire to theatre of the obscure.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/14/03
Jim Slotek
Jam! Movies
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4.5/5

Everyone can find something they like on the buffet.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/11/03
Karina Montgomery
Cinerina
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2.5/4

The best witness of 9/11 is 9/11, and Inarritu, as if honorably terrorized by the facts, turns to an Arabic quotation: 'Does God's light guide us or blind us?'

Full Review | comment Comment
11/04/03
David Elliott
San Diego Union-Tribune
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4/5

You have to take the duds with the skyrockets, but overall, this odd compendium is an emotionally moving experience.

Full Review | comment Comment
10/23/03
Richard Nilsen
Arizona Republic
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Related Forums

REEL_REVIEWER
11'09"01: SEPTEMBER 11 - You couldn't ask for 11 more different films if you tried?
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/18/04


REEL_REVIEWER
11'09"01: SEPTEMBER 11 - You couldn't ask for 11 more different films if you tried?
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/18/04


REEL_REVIEWER
11'09"01: SEPTEMBER 11 - You couldn't ask for 11 more different films if you tried?
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/18/04


REEL_REVIEWER
11'09"01: SEPTEMBER 11 - You couldn't ask for 11 more different films if you tried?
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/18/04


Sean Penn is a real good American, LMAO!
by: MillyaBella 2/9/04

Around the Network

• September 11 at Rotten Tomatoes
• September 11 at AskMen
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