By setting up cameras at either end of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, all Director Eric Steel had to do was wait. Filmed with a long lens, The Bridge shows each distant person clamber, pause, and finally plummet into the waters of the bay hundreds of feet below. Steel’s cameras recorded 23 of the 24 known suicides during the year in which it was made.
The Bridge’s achievement is not simply to show suicide – there are video nasties around that do that in much more detail – but in the way it explores the subject without sensationalism or judgement, allowing the family and friends of the deceased to have their say on the life and the death of their loved-one.
The Bridge captures the bleakness and desperation of each death, but it also helps the viewer to understand the release and finality sought through the act of suicide.
Sensitive, reflective and carefully made, this is a gripping and insightful documentary that pushes the boundaries of the genre into uneasy, but not necessarily unwelcome, territory. Its many moments will stay with you long after the screen has faded to black.
In the USA today, suicide is far more common than homicide, with someone taking their own life every eighteen minutes, and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge confirmed as the most popular suicide destination in the world. Inspired by an article written by Tad Friend of the New Yorker , entitled 'The Fatal Grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge'. Eric Steel's Documentary encapsulates the combination of suffering and the search for release of those desperate enough to find themselves on the precipice of The Bridge in 2004.
Exploring at the most personal and revealing levels what drove them to this most final of decisions, The Bridge is certain to reignite the issues of the suicide barrier at the Golden Gate Bridge and to open a much needed debate on mental health care and suicide prevention. Filming 23 of the 24 people who died there in that year, Steel also interviews friends, witnesses and, incredibly, one man who survived his suicide attempt. Inevitably controversial, it's also an unflinching and ultimately poignant work.
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The Bridge
