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10/4/07

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This trailer hypnotised me the first time I saw it. I love the Golden Gate Bridge. San Fransisco is the only city I regurally visited the first 18 years of my life. I loved it as a kid and it will always remain my favorite bridge in the world. I've also had a fascination with death most of my life and suicide in particular. How life could get so bad that you would want to end it.

If
The Bridge had played in a theater near me, I would have made the rare trip to see a documentary outside of a film festival. When it came out on DVD, it wasn't available in our local store, and it took forever to get to me from Blockbuster.com.

The film is gorgeous. I've been all over San Fransisco, it was wonderful to see the city and the bridge from so many different angles. There are hundreds of different shots of the bridge from nearly every point that it's viewable from. So if you don't care about the Golden Gate Bridge, the film will might get boring for you. However, that's just the icing on the cake.

The meat of the film is about suicide and how it touches people. Filmmaker Eric Steel and his team took one year to film the bridge and all the people that jumped off it. It's the number one place in the world for commiting suicide. There is a mystical draw to the bridge and the long, long drop to the icy water below. Talking with many of the relatives and friends of suicide victims from the year, we learn about each of these folks in who they were in life and what may have drove them to their death.

This film is not for the squeimish. There are quite a few shots of people in the last moments in their life, before they take the plunge. It's shocking to watch, nothing graphic is seen, it's all in your head and your point of view on how it must feel. The best part of the film is the incredible story of Kevin Hines and how he made the jump and survived.

It's an extremely fascinating film.

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