The TV Zone

On Nine Eleven we're supposed to remember the day, now seven years distant, which was the point of this morning's moving ceremonies. But to what extent should we re-live it? There have been many great 9/11 documentaries, but most seem more preoccupied with understanding, if that's possible, or a compilation of what we know, or should know, or still don't know. What's so incredibly unique - and uniquely powerful - about tonight's "102 Minutes that Changed America" on the History Channel (9 p.m.) is that it eschews all of that for something far more visceral and elemental. There is no moment over these 102 minutes that plows the mind any closer to comprehension, but instead, quite the opposite. To watch is to reverse some process that we've all gone through over these last seven years - a process of grudging and painful acceptance and even partial understanding. This program is a knife that scrapes living bone and tissue. It's a hot poker in the belly. So it's entirely up to you whether to watch or not, but to watch does mean re-living the morning. Sorry, but that's a difficult decision you'll have to make on your own.

How do the filmmakers, Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel, accomplish this feat? They've collected raw video footage (much of it amateur) from over a hundred sources, and pieced it together in a way that tracks every second from 8:48 on; they've managed this, one assumes, with the aid of time clocks, but this real-time approach almost tricks the mind into NOT knowing will come next; this pastiche would also seem to promise some sort of Rashomon effect, with a blizzard of different perspectives all adding up to the same truth. But really, the opposite takes place: Yes, everyone had a different story or a different perspective that morning, but what Jacobs and Siskel have done here is to reveal that so many people had a shared perspective as well, where all seemed fused together nearly as one.

There are many many grace notes throughout, so powerful that they will be absorbed into your memory of Nine Eleven, as they have now been into mine: Soft urgent voices in the background...a camera left on the floor, revealing only a pair of dust-covered sneakers, shuffling away...a man saying "Monday Night Football saved my life..." Firemen walking toward the lone tower, grim determination on their faces, knowing that they are going to certain death...The cloud of rolling dust, in the brilliant sunshine, about to engulf the tiny figures fleeing before it...the pigeon that just drops out of the sky...the firemen, again, kicking through piles of paper, looking at the wreckage and you knowing what they know at that exact moment...the little girl pointing and saying, "it's not there any more."

In sum, "102" is a remarkable film. You should watch, really.