SEVEN DAYS IN SEPTEMBER is a feature length documentary film made by
Steve Rosenbaum for Camera Planet Pictures. Rosenbaum's film takes you
through 9/11, from the day before the WTC got bombed, up until one
week later. It is a selection of footage shot by twenty-three New
Yorkers; some regular working people with cameras and some established
documentarians. It doesn't just set out to tell one person's story. It
aims to tell the story of a City in it's worst and finest hour.
As someone who lived near Ground Zero, volunteered and wrote stories
about it for a British newspaper, I found the experience of watching
the film: moving beyond belief, utterly surreal and very thought provoking.
For many, that time was an opportunity to reach out, give something
back to their city. For others, it was a time to pick fights. Whatever your response was, no one judged you. For those seven days, we all found ourselves united by the same feelings: powerlessness, fear, sadness and rage.
The most disturbing part of watching this film, is seeing footage of
moments and events that I was present at and moments that I knew
nothing of, that were taking place only a few blocks away. Funny how
the mind records it differently. It felt like another life and yet I found myself in tears, watching New Yorkers at their best, worst and most human.
The most refreshing thing about this film is how it appears to be
almost completely unedited. I don't mean that it is unprofessional in
any way. It is unusual these days to watch a film about 9/11 that has
no agenda. In other pieces I have seen, your emotions are jerked around by the musical score or narration. Rosenbaum avoids any such sentimentality, instead opting for a more dream-like approach. The viewer journeys through the material in much the same way that New Yorkers journeyed through our lives at that time. This allows the rawness of the footage to emerge. The accidents that occur while filming are left in, which adds to the overall drama. Hearing the rumble of the collapsing building or the breathlessness of a cameraman as he flees from a bank of smoke, is far more effective than some musical crescendo.
Rosenbaum's choice to use the different video journalists to
narrate their own segments, helps to create a multi-emotional
landscape. The counterpoint of the to-camera interviews shot in a
studio setting, helps to ground the different points of view and
establish what agendas the individual cameramen and women had. The
agendas are as diverse as "capturing history" to "I felt safer with my
camera".
Due to the first person camera, the overall experience of watching the
film is very subjective, very personal. We experience the horror all
over again as the planes crash into the buildings. The fire bursts out
of the giant hulking buildings from many different vantage points all
over the City.
A single shot of a man jumping to his death punctuates the scene. The
banks of smoke roll towards you. People flee from the scene like ants
escaping an ant hill. Police officers covered in white soot attempt to
reassurance everyone. Then the darkness and the fog roll in. Commuters
emerge from the WTC underground station to a devastated City. Wandering around blindly like moles in broad daylight, they attempt to get their barings. Whited-out sign posts, destroyed fire trucks, abandoned shoes and street vendor trolleys. A woman in Brooklyn looks up and sees the sky filled with pieces of paper fluttering down like snowflakes. She picks up a memo from Morgan Stanley. A sad reminder of what is to come.
Scenes of mass exodus that bring to mind refugees escaping war torn
countries. Banks of people along the West side highway screaming
support to the rescue workers. Basket ball courts filled with
mountains of food. Rescue workers picking through the steel girders
with dogs. Candlelit vigils for the dead. People gathered at Union
Square singing peace songs. Then the relief of the first rain. An
exhausted woman on a train breaks down and
cries.
One of my favourite scenes is that of an argument breaking out at
Union Square about what the American flag symbolises. Two people with
opposing opinions: one says it perpetuates violence, the other accuses her of being Un-American. Then the debate, to bomb or not to bomb. Forgiveness versus revenge, the oldest story in the book. A mob starts to form. The anger escalates till two people face each other, red faced, screaming, with perspiration dripping off them. "I picked up body parts...." "So did I." Finally a girl says "There's so much fear and anger and there's no place to put it. I don't know what to do with it." Then everyone in the crowd breaks into tears and starts hugging each other.
A woman returns to her apartment, only to find everything covered in a
thick white soot. She whimpers as she looks at her ruined apartment
and clothes. In the background we can see the hulking ruins of the WTC
like a great big ravaged carcass.
The film closes with a sense of optimism. But there is a sense that
everything is different now. A phoenix has risen from the ashes. The
voice of an eleven year old boy leaves us with a haunting reminder as
he quotes Einstein, warning us that if we don't learn how to live in
peace, the third war will be nuclear and the fourth war will be fought
with stones and arrows.
Reviewed by Eve Pomerance
Reader comments about 7 Days in September
Rupert Belfrage,M.A. (rupertbelfrage@postmaster.co.uk) writes:
Beautifully reviewed by my cousin Eve Pomerance and as a Uk citizen will no doubt find the film extremely poignant and interesting. Last night we were shown on our national TV the French TV crew in the building with the firechiefs as they contemplated what to do-the collapse occured and miraculously they filmed on and escaped out. It was an extraordinary footage.
amanda yates (Email address withheld) writes:
I have not yet seen the film but Ms. Pomerance's senstively drawn review was an inpiration. As soon as the film hits the theatre's here in the UK I will be on my way.
Kathy Perutz (KPerutz@att.net) writes:
Eve Pomerance's passionate and detailed review of 7 Days in September makes me want to see it immediately! Where is it playing? Also: I'd love to read a follow-up by EP on how the original events look to her now, seen across the year just passed. How has it changed her life (if it has), or how did it become assimilated with all her memories (if it did).
Yesterday (9-11-02) was a big day in New York, though at the same time it was a day like any other, with a few people, a few signs in Union Square but no cops, and a lot of people simply lying in the grass at the center of the square doing what you felt they always did; more flags than usual, and FDNY t-shirts, but none of the panic, the solidarity, the urgency or even the politics of the day last year. (Only the weather forgot what year it was: the same beautiful, clear blue uncaring sky.) Please, get EP to write about A Year Later.
Thank you.
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