Maybe he wanted to fly one time.

I've been gone for a while. Sorry about that. In this month, I have moved from Boston to Seattle, and from Seattle, I took a road trip to San Fransisco. I've been to San Fransisco a few times, but I never really enjoyed it. It's alright. It's nice, but there hasn't ever been anything about that city that would come home with me. Nothing about it I ever really...wanted to talk about.
     Then I walked across the Bridge.
     I hadn't seen the documentary before hand. I knew that it existed. I knew what it was about. I assumed that it was something people used to talk about, but not any more. No one jumps anymore.
     No no, they still do. I get it now.
If this were a travel blog, I would talk about my walk. But it's not. This is a movie blog.


     In 2004, Eric Steel filmed the Golden Gate Bridge for a year. He captured a number of suicides on film, then interviewed the families and friends, not telling them he had the footage. He released these last moments and their stories in his 2006 film The Bridge. 
     Strictly as a documentary, and completely disregarding the subject at hand, this movie isn't ideal. I felt the music choice was really horrible. It caused me to laugh a few times and I really, with all of my heart, felt it was inappropriate to do so. Some of the camera work was unimpressive as well. And I'm not talking about the actual footage of jumps. Christ Almighty I would never complain about watching an actual person actually die but just out of shot, but a lot of the shots of the Bridge itself where boring. They weren't menacing. They weren't serene. They weren't geometrically alive. They were just bland, sped-up shots. Not all of them, but some of them. I also really really hate to include this, but remember in Paranormal Activity, when something scary was going to happen, there was that sound? That..reverberating..sound? This movie kind of did that. It kind of made you anticipate it. Those scenes turned the documentary into a home-made horror movie. It was awful. Also, including a little girls' soccer team named "SPLASH" isn't a good idea either. Ugh. I wanted to knock all of Eric Steel's teeth out and make a bracelet.
Another downfall (I have already slapped myself for the use of this word) of this movie was that they didn't give you a lot of statistics, or history, or anything. The movie is strictly about suicide and not enough about the Bridge itself. I had to do (not "had to do" per se, but more of " was possessed by the Bridge and felt the need to know everything about it, making me willing to do") a lot of research behind the creation of the Bridge, a more in depth history of the suicides (the movie doesn't tell you that one woman jumped, survived, then jumped again years later and died), and what the city is doing for means of suicidal prevention. They kind of just skim the surface of it all.
     I'm sorry! Just because the movie is about suicide, doesn't mean you can't do a good job! Look, there were times when I gasped (the first jump is awful). There were times when I screamed, like the second jump. The second jump was the worst for me. And the last jump? Steel built up to this for the entire movie. At times, I was bawling. My god, I haven't cried from a movie in a long time.
    
But I don't know how to exactly rate this movie. I don't know how to talk about it. I haven't figured out how to talk about The Golden Gate Bridge in any fashion since I stepped foot onto it.


But I get it.