11'9

Watch 11'9"01 September 11

  • NR
  • 2002
  • 2 hr 15 min
  • 6.9  (5,911)
  • 61

11'9"01 September 11 is a searing tribute to the tragedy of the September 11 attacks in 2001. Directed by a mix of popular international filmmakers, the movie is an anthology of eleven short films, each broadcasted by a different director. The movie starts with Samira Makhmalbaf's early morning portrait of children in Afghanistan starting their day within the ruins of a school destroyed by American bombs. It then moves on to Claude Lelouch's vignette of a Frenchman involved in 9/11 whose view of the world is forever transformed. From there, Danis Tanovic explores the aftermath of the attacks from the vantage point of a tourist couple, who can only look on in disbelief as the towers crumble, alongside footage shot by Yusuf Shahin, a longtime participant in Egyptian cinema.

In addition to scenes from America and Europe, the filmmakers also take us around the globe. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's story is built around the horrific plight of individuals working in a modern-day world trade center located in Mexico. Mira Nair brings us to Bombay, where a Muslim-American wife and husband anxiously watch the attacks on television, fearing for their family in New York City.

The movie then travels to the United States itself, where Sean Penn (in his directing debut) films a segment about a widower just days before his wife's scheduled visit to the planet's most famous spot for terrorism, Nathalie Portman taking guardianship of a New York City resident in need of care, and Ken Loach concentrates on Chile and the exact moment when Salvador Allende's Marxist government was removed in a coup backed by America.

In the film's second half, the mood changes dramatically as several directors explore various subjects linked with the attacks. For example, Shohei Imamura examines how much an image of the events has become, and how complicated capturing the moments depicted in it can be. Idrissa Ouedraogo, on the other hand, focuses on how locals in a developing African country might have reacted to news of the attack.

Samuel Maoz provides the film with an artistic climax by opening his brief "Eyes of the Gaze" around the possibility that visualizing over and over again the collapse of the Twin Towers couldn't do any good, to see rather the face of those nearby the event.

November 2001 offered unimaginable grief to the world, but as 11'9"01 September 11 shows us, the impact of that awful day traveled even farther than we could have initially realized. The individual viewpoints of these filmmakers provide an eye-opening glimpse of both the global outrage and the deeply personal reaction engendered by one of the worst events in human history.

In conclusion, 11'9"01 September 11 is a film that doesn't manipulate its subject, nor does it try to beat the viewer over the head with a political message. Instead, it just asks you to watch and pay attention to what is happening. This film is a daring, coming-of-age work that is undeniably essential viewing in this day and era.

11'9
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Description
  • Release Date
    2002
  • MPAA Rating
    NR
  • Runtime
    2 hr 15 min
  • Language
    Spanish, English, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, French Sign Language
  • IMDB Rating
    6.9  (5,911)
  • Metascore
    61
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