The Bridge (2006) 8/10
One minute into The Bridge, a rotund, middle-aged man in sunglasses and a baseball cap gazes down from the Golden Gate Bridge and, as casually as if he were stepping out of his own front door, tosses himself over the railing – whoosh! – and flies down, down, down into the choppy waters of San Francisco Bay below. At first, you don’t believe what you’re seeing: “Surely that man didn’t just commit suicide,” you say. “It’s not possible.” But he did; it is. And this is only the first of many such images in The Bridge, director Steel’s stunning documentary about the legendary Golden Gate and the dozens who travel there every year – these pilgrims of doom – to put an end to their lives. (From the Austin Chronicles)
The very first scene of The Bridge stuns you. A man casually jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge. There is no CGI, no camera trickery. This is actual footage of a real suicide. Director Eric Steel spent the whole of 2004 filming the Golden Gate Bridge, which is a suicide magnet. More than a thousand people have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge since it was built and in 2004 alone, 24 jumped. And Steel has captured almost every single suicide of that year in an impressive and highly controversial film.
The juxtaposition of the majestic Golden Gate Bridge and the harrowing finality of the ‘jumpers’ could not be more stark. The film itself is wrenching, and there is a morbid fascination as the camera lingers on every pedestrian and one wonders if the person is going to jump. The shots of the Bridge are beautiful, and bring out the architectural beauty of the structure, especially when it is shrouded in mists. But it is the footage of the jumpers that is as shocking as it is voyeuristic.
The film is not all about footage of people jumping off. We cut to interviews of people who witnessed the suicides or those who knew the jumpers. It helps to give a face and a name to those who jumped, and it humanizes them which makes it all the more difficult to watch when the jumper’s footage appears. Not all of the interview footage is useful; some border on banal and is better of being cut.
As a film, the contrast between the beauty of the Bridge and the acts of the jumpers makes the film compelling viewing. The Golden Gate Bridge is beautifully shot and is given a transcendental aura almost. Like one interviewee said, there is a sense of romanticism about the Bridge .The film tries to give an insight into the lives of those who jumped, although this feels somewhat superficial. As a documentary, it is a remarkable work although it borders on being exploitative. Having said that, it is a film that needs to be made and needs to be seen. This is one documentary that is as chilling as it is achingly beautiful. And the final, closing image of the long haired rocker inspired jumper will be etched in your mind long after you have finished the film.
“The result is a serious, wrenching and oddly poetic documentary, which weaves footage shot on the world’s top suicide magnet - a stunningly beautiful location - with interviews of the suicide victims’ stunned survivors, and the fascinating recollections of a depressed man who jumped and miraculously lived to talk about it.”- New York Post
““The Bridge,” an eerie and indelible documentary about suicide, juxtaposes transcendent beauty and personal tragedy as starkly as any film I can recall.”- New York Times
“As extensively photographed by McCandless in all weathers and from a multiplicity of angles, the Golden Gate looks spectacularly beautiful and alluring. We don’t have to be told why people go there to die, we see and feel the lure right up on the screen.”- LA Times
