'When a City Falls'
Because I'm stupid I went to see this movie on my one day off this week. It was a daft choice. I was over wrought, over tired and over emotional and found it extremely difficult to watch. I'll try to be coherent, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly. Please just bear with any weird jumps in thought :D Also, anyone likely to see it and not want to be spoiled (which ... uh, yeah the storyline is kind of obvious hehe) please to avert your eyes now.
It's set up very simply - opens with a variety of shots of the city as it was, which I found more upsetting than I thought I would. This was one of the things I knew about in advance and it was hard to see the way we were. It was labelled 'September 3rd, 2010' and while I don't believe all that footage can have been from that day, it effectively documents briefly an idyllic early spring day where people wander around, doing their own thing and completely unaware of what was coming. Then the screen goes blank and the sound of the quake rattles through and there's absolutely no escape from the sound of it and the horror of it, and you sit there while it happens. I don't know how outsiders, or those who weren't here for it, would find that part, but for me I was thrown right back into those moments in the pitch dark with that sound all around and felt helpless all over again. Eventually images begin again, and the story moves along.
It covers how things were that day and the days after, it talks to people who were affected and it's fascinating, by the way, to see how different this first part is from the rest because this documentary was almost finished when February hit so they were aiming for a certain type of film which obviously didn't quite fit with the direction they eventually had to go in. This part was also very hard to watch, with people saying things about how wonderfully certain buildings stood up to September and how blessed we really were. They include the cathedrals (both of them) and when both lots of people talked about those buildings I got quite tearful because I knew what was coming. The naivete and innocence of that time was quite overwhelming, for me at least. There was one part that had the whole theatre laughing, though - a poor building inspector or something similar doing a first run through of a house before the proper inspectors came by asking a woman how she would characterise the damage to her house - did she think it was minor or major? It was funny because she'd literally just taken the camera guy through and shown him what it was like. 'Major' was something of an understatement. There were actually many moments like that, which made people laugh in a black sort of way.
They skim quickly over a few of the bigger aftershocks (September 8th and Boxing Day, for example) before fetching up at February. This part I don't recall much of - musta blocked it out. I know they use the footage someone found of a building crumbling that I linked to what seems like a billion years ago. I know they had the sounds of car alarms going. I know they showed at least one person being pulled from rubble with a towel on the face (suggesting not good things). I know they showed rescue efforts and one of the buses that got crushed. I know that somewhere around this time I got one of my personal biggest jolts when I saw a friend's house getting its original spraypainting. I honestly don't recall much more of this part before it moves on to the 'getting by' stuff.
The next section they go suburb by suburb through the early days of the recovery, starting with Bexley and taking in everything from New Brighton to Aranui, Avonside to Kaiapoi. I won't go into detail here, but they follow one or two people right through (in fact one they had followed since September, and his story is both painful and fascinating), coming back to them in between their visits to the suburbs. This part felt a little long, though it does deal very well with the initial hardship, the coming of the relief from Rangiora and Wellington and the eventual moving on a bit.
The part that really got to me actually was the sense of defeatism in people after the June quake. I remember so well that sense of 'oh god, not this again' - and so so so many people were talking that way in the movie and about how fed up they were and how they just wanted to get out. Now, of course it was also really good for me because it reinforced again that I wasn't the only one to hit a real low after that quake. But it was still hard to watch after seeing the relief and unity in the earlier segments. I think this is why my overall feeling after coming out of the movie isn't feeling inspired and wanting to keep going - because, while they move on to things after this to give that feeling, that sense of giving up (and I did very nearly give up in June) just hangs over the rest of the movie for me. This is probably personal and other people won't have that to the same extent.
The 'moving on' section involves, among other things like Gap Filler, the camera crew going to San Francisco, where they talk to Art Agnos about their experiences after the Loma Prieta quake. I was pleased to see they did this after he'd been to Christchurch because he acknowledged that what we face is way worse than what San Francisco did. Before that he had this very chipper 'she'll be right' sense to his speeches to us, and I'd often found it quite grating. After seeing our city he was a bit shocked at the scale, but their experience is still important because of the way they changed what they had and made it better. They took it as an opportunity and so can we. Then the movie moves on to Portland, Oregon where they show an example of an area that was run down but was revitalised and exciting - and, most important, pedestrian and family friendly (something the central city plan is trying to achieve). Finally they go to New Orleans to show how they are recovering after Katrina. I might have found this segment a bit better if I wasn't aware that parts of it are still not great. There was, however, one amazing woman who spoke about what the experience was like, sent her love and said basically 'all these things you feel are normal' - the sadness at what is lost, the missing things you had, the longing for the old life, etc etc. But she said you move on and get past it and it was just nice to hear from someone that much further down the track -- it isn't easy, but it is doable.
There was a bit more after that, but I feel like that's a nice place to leave this. There was hope in the movie, but it was very draining to watch. I had forgotten a lot of what we went through, but it took me right back. In particular the sound of the helicopters going past overhead all day. I'd forgotten just how constant that was - that and the tanks etc just roaming the streets. It really was like a war zone. Anyway, that was my impression of the movie. I think I'll go again, because I spent a lot of this time just reacting and being overwhelmed and getting close to tears a lot. I think I need another viewing to really appreciate it as a movie and not just as a piece of self-therapy.
It's set up very simply - opens with a variety of shots of the city as it was, which I found more upsetting than I thought I would. This was one of the things I knew about in advance and it was hard to see the way we were. It was labelled 'September 3rd, 2010' and while I don't believe all that footage can have been from that day, it effectively documents briefly an idyllic early spring day where people wander around, doing their own thing and completely unaware of what was coming. Then the screen goes blank and the sound of the quake rattles through and there's absolutely no escape from the sound of it and the horror of it, and you sit there while it happens. I don't know how outsiders, or those who weren't here for it, would find that part, but for me I was thrown right back into those moments in the pitch dark with that sound all around and felt helpless all over again. Eventually images begin again, and the story moves along.
It covers how things were that day and the days after, it talks to people who were affected and it's fascinating, by the way, to see how different this first part is from the rest because this documentary was almost finished when February hit so they were aiming for a certain type of film which obviously didn't quite fit with the direction they eventually had to go in. This part was also very hard to watch, with people saying things about how wonderfully certain buildings stood up to September and how blessed we really were. They include the cathedrals (both of them) and when both lots of people talked about those buildings I got quite tearful because I knew what was coming. The naivete and innocence of that time was quite overwhelming, for me at least. There was one part that had the whole theatre laughing, though - a poor building inspector or something similar doing a first run through of a house before the proper inspectors came by asking a woman how she would characterise the damage to her house - did she think it was minor or major? It was funny because she'd literally just taken the camera guy through and shown him what it was like. 'Major' was something of an understatement. There were actually many moments like that, which made people laugh in a black sort of way.
They skim quickly over a few of the bigger aftershocks (September 8th and Boxing Day, for example) before fetching up at February. This part I don't recall much of - musta blocked it out. I know they use the footage someone found of a building crumbling that I linked to what seems like a billion years ago. I know they had the sounds of car alarms going. I know they showed at least one person being pulled from rubble with a towel on the face (suggesting not good things). I know they showed rescue efforts and one of the buses that got crushed. I know that somewhere around this time I got one of my personal biggest jolts when I saw a friend's house getting its original spraypainting. I honestly don't recall much more of this part before it moves on to the 'getting by' stuff.
The next section they go suburb by suburb through the early days of the recovery, starting with Bexley and taking in everything from New Brighton to Aranui, Avonside to Kaiapoi. I won't go into detail here, but they follow one or two people right through (in fact one they had followed since September, and his story is both painful and fascinating), coming back to them in between their visits to the suburbs. This part felt a little long, though it does deal very well with the initial hardship, the coming of the relief from Rangiora and Wellington and the eventual moving on a bit.
The part that really got to me actually was the sense of defeatism in people after the June quake. I remember so well that sense of 'oh god, not this again' - and so so so many people were talking that way in the movie and about how fed up they were and how they just wanted to get out. Now, of course it was also really good for me because it reinforced again that I wasn't the only one to hit a real low after that quake. But it was still hard to watch after seeing the relief and unity in the earlier segments. I think this is why my overall feeling after coming out of the movie isn't feeling inspired and wanting to keep going - because, while they move on to things after this to give that feeling, that sense of giving up (and I did very nearly give up in June) just hangs over the rest of the movie for me. This is probably personal and other people won't have that to the same extent.
The 'moving on' section involves, among other things like Gap Filler, the camera crew going to San Francisco, where they talk to Art Agnos about their experiences after the Loma Prieta quake. I was pleased to see they did this after he'd been to Christchurch because he acknowledged that what we face is way worse than what San Francisco did. Before that he had this very chipper 'she'll be right' sense to his speeches to us, and I'd often found it quite grating. After seeing our city he was a bit shocked at the scale, but their experience is still important because of the way they changed what they had and made it better. They took it as an opportunity and so can we. Then the movie moves on to Portland, Oregon where they show an example of an area that was run down but was revitalised and exciting - and, most important, pedestrian and family friendly (something the central city plan is trying to achieve). Finally they go to New Orleans to show how they are recovering after Katrina. I might have found this segment a bit better if I wasn't aware that parts of it are still not great. There was, however, one amazing woman who spoke about what the experience was like, sent her love and said basically 'all these things you feel are normal' - the sadness at what is lost, the missing things you had, the longing for the old life, etc etc. But she said you move on and get past it and it was just nice to hear from someone that much further down the track -- it isn't easy, but it is doable.
There was a bit more after that, but I feel like that's a nice place to leave this. There was hope in the movie, but it was very draining to watch. I had forgotten a lot of what we went through, but it took me right back. In particular the sound of the helicopters going past overhead all day. I'd forgotten just how constant that was - that and the tanks etc just roaming the streets. It really was like a war zone. Anyway, that was my impression of the movie. I think I'll go again, because I spent a lot of this time just reacting and being overwhelmed and getting close to tears a lot. I think I need another viewing to really appreciate it as a movie and not just as a piece of self-therapy.