Like almost everybody else, I've seen a lot of documentaries about 9/11 but somehow I'd missed this one. It provides a different perspective on the World Trade Center attacks, as it focuses on the largest group of victims — the employees of Cantor Fitzgerald.
The documentary is not, primarily, about the deaths. Why they happened is never mentioned. Other than some brief shots of the planes hitting the towers, the film never mentions how they died. 658 people went to work that morning on the top five floors of one of the towers. They all died. That's about all that's said about that.
The movie, instead, is about what happened after: later that morning, the next day, the next week, the next months, the next decade. Interviews with the family members — parents, spouses, siblings of those who died — give you an insight into the completely disorienting grief that they experienced, and shows you how people's attitudes towards the company changed over time.
But the movie is particularly about how the company responded to the disaster of having two-thirds of its employees killed in a single day. Two quite improbable things happened.
First, the company survived its first week after 9/11, somehow got back to business a couple days afterward making trades with a skeleton crew. I'd actually have liked to know more about how that was accomplished because it's darned impressive.
And second, the company rather quickly came up with a plan to help the families of those who died — and it carried out that plan. There's some pretty interesting stuff here about the response of a major company to an unprecedented challenge that, yes, threatens the existence of the company, but which involves a lot more than business.
I won't say more about this, but be sure to watch to the very end — especially if you question the bona fides of the filmmaker. I was quietly moved at several points during the film, but I didn't get choked up until the end, when the filmmaker reveals her own connection with her subject matter.
It's a very well-made documentary, and if I may put it this way, it is truly dramatic and literary. This is not a story about simple, pure heroism like the firefighters (and many others) displayed that day. It's a story about complex people responding to a complex and in many ways downright distasteful challenge.
The documentary is not, primarily, about the deaths. Why they happened is never mentioned. Other than some brief shots of the planes hitting the towers, the film never mentions how they died. 658 people went to work that morning on the top five floors of one of the towers. They all died. That's about all that's said about that.
The movie, instead, is about what happened after: later that morning, the next day, the next week, the next months, the next decade. Interviews with the family members — parents, spouses, siblings of those who died — give you an insight into the completely disorienting grief that they experienced, and shows you how people's attitudes towards the company changed over time.
But the movie is particularly about how the company responded to the disaster of having two-thirds of its employees killed in a single day. Two quite improbable things happened.
First, the company survived its first week after 9/11, somehow got back to business a couple days afterward making trades with a skeleton crew. I'd actually have liked to know more about how that was accomplished because it's darned impressive.
And second, the company rather quickly came up with a plan to help the families of those who died — and it carried out that plan. There's some pretty interesting stuff here about the response of a major company to an unprecedented challenge that, yes, threatens the existence of the company, but which involves a lot more than business.
I won't say more about this, but be sure to watch to the very end — especially if you question the bona fides of the filmmaker. I was quietly moved at several points during the film, but I didn't get choked up until the end, when the filmmaker reveals her own connection with her subject matter.
It's a very well-made documentary, and if I may put it this way, it is truly dramatic and literary. This is not a story about simple, pure heroism like the firefighters (and many others) displayed that day. It's a story about complex people responding to a complex and in many ways downright distasteful challenge.