The Bridge movie review & film summary (2006)

In 2004, Steel and his crew set up cameras to photograph the bridge from dusk to dawn over an entire year. In addition to capturing magnificent shots of the bridge in all its formidable glory, they also trained telephoto cameras on the mid-span to catch jumpers and potential jumpers in the act. They paid special attention to people who were alone, hesitant, lingering or pacing a little too long, sometimes crying or just staring. Each time the filmmakers noticed someone who seemed to be preparing to leap, they alerted the Bridge Patrol. Steel estimates they prevented six jumps that year.

"The Bridge" is neither a well-intentioned humanitarian project, nor a voyeuristic snuff film. It succeeds because it is honest about exhibiting undeniable elements of both. It's a profoundly affecting work of art that peers into an abyss that most of us are terrified to face -- not just the waters of the bay, but the human mind -- and reflects on the unanswerable question: What makes someone take that leap into the void?

The mother of a boy who was fascinated -- nearly obsessed -- with the bridge, and who jumped from it to his death at 21, fears (like many family and friends) that she could have been the cause of some of the damage that made her son want to die, or that she could have done more to prevent his death. But finally someone tells her, point blank: "It's not about you. It has nothing to do with you." In the end, nearly everyone interviewed seems to have felt that their departed had gone away long before the jump, as if they were already out on the deck, alone and unreachable.

The deeper the movie looks into the lives of its suicides, the more patterns emerge, not unlike the common but unpredictable behaviors exhibited along the railings. Most of the jumpers have histories of mental illness, and spent days, months or even years contemplating, discussing, threatening, planning and preparing for their final decisive act. One woman likens the process to "finding a college to attend," and says that, despite its destructive nature, "there's a lot of rational thought that goes into an act that a lot of people just consider irrational."