"It wasn't about September 11th," David Niles told us. We had just seen his film "Remember" in the Tribute exhibit in the Standard Oil Building. Filmed with HDTV technology, "Remember" depicts life before and then immediately after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Several characters appear throughout the film. A girl rising with the dawn looks out at the twin towers toward the beginning of the film, the joy and excitement evident in her eyes. The screen shifts to another woman, sitting in deep meditation in Central Park. Then a man sits at a newspaper stand watching the people go by. The depiction of life in the first half of this movie was great.
Suddenly, the screen cuts to people on that day, and for the first time in the movie the movement ceases. People stand in the streets searching the skies as papers and ash fall toward the ground from the towers. Our seats in the audience began to shake, as if we were truly amidst the individuals on the screen. Slowly the movie returns to people going about their daily lives. The girl still rises at dawn, the woman still ponders in the park, and the man still sits behind his counter. Now I know what Niles meant. "Remember" is about life and New York's resilience.
