Apparently there are people in couples who are more drawn to movies about suicide then others. I realized this when Jason and I ended up seeing The Bridge together and I thought, "where's Meg and Jonah?" "Oh right, less drawn to this subject matter". I have to admit I was obsessed ever since I read the New Yorker article a few years ago, that inspired this documentary.

The film was simply and successfully structured. What it did especially well was interspersing interviews with the loved ones of the jumpers with images of the actual jumpers pacing, contemplating and jumping. Visually, it was incredibly strong. Also, the tremendous struggle that loved ones had over what to do to help, to what extent to help, etc was clear and an enormously interesting and worthwhile question.

What surprised me was that I found myself not as interested in the personal stories as I thought I would be. I'm the most emotional person always interested in the human stories so I wondered why I was hoping instead to get less personal, more statistical and clinical analysis. I think it's because depression is not foreign to me and I can't help but want analysis that makes me feel like we're getting closer to understanding and perhaps lessening the problem. I wanted to know about the studies that have been done about jumpers, what percentage of jumpers are on medication when do jump?, for most people is this the first suicide attempt or the culmination of several unsuccessful attempts?, what percentage of people travel to get there? Of course these questions would only be questions to start off the more difficult questions we should ask ourselves about the state of mental health in our society.

Check out Jason's review from which you can also check out a graph detailing jump spots and an interview with a guy who survived his jump.