11'09'01

Alain Brigand's 2002 documentary-drama "11'09'01" depicts 11 short films that capture distinct global perspectives surrounding the historic tragedy of the World Trade Center bombings on the day of September 11, 2001, a fateful day that united a world. With its sobering mood and lack of sound, the short film from French director Claude Lelouch has to be the most compelling. Lelouch successfully conveys the message that sometimes, silence can say more than 1,000 words ever could. Instead, images take center stage in this 11 minute short, as a young deaf-mute woman's argument with her boyfriend results in his stormy departure from their apartment. As the young woman poses herself in front of a computer screen, writing him a break-up letter, the camera fixes itself on a TV screen in the foreground showing the planes crashing into the Twin Towers. This close up blurs the young woman and the computer in the background, and in turn, blurs the importance of petty lovers' quarrels in the wake of such devastation, while the camera's situation of the important heaviness of September 11 is emphasized. Finally, a knock at the door reveals her boyfriend covered from head to toe in the white ash, rubble and soot of Ground Zero. Though the man and woman fought over a simple misunderstanding, this would not have beared near the consequence that the 9/11 attacks did on the world, a world forever changed.