Dia Reeves

I was turned on to this documentary called The Bridge by a coworker. This is the premise: a guy and his crew spend one year filming people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. And no not bungee-jumping–jumping to their deaths. It’s the eeriest frigging thing I’ve ever seen.

I think the point is to try to understand why people want to commit suicide and why so many people choose the Golden Gate Bridge over several other choices. There’s a romantic quality involved–much more romantic than just blowing your brains out, I guess. So the bridge itself becomes a character in the film, this creepy, hypnotic Pied Piper that lures people to their deaths. Kinda. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. Here’s the trailer:

It’s a really heavy film, tragic and fascinating. You look at the people on the bridge and think you know which ones will jump,  but it’s never who you think it’ll be. There’s one scene with a photographer on the bridge. He starts taking pictures of a woman climbing over the railing and stepping right to the edge of the bridge to jump. And then he realizes he’s not just taking pictures, he’s watching a girl who’s about to kill herself. So he grabs her and saves her, even though she tries to fight him off.

And that’s how I felt while I was watching. My mind kept trying to convince me that none of it was real, but it is real. Boy, is it real. A total mindjob, and I highly recommend it.

Tags: unheard of awesomeness

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.