(November 1, 2006) — When the theater attendant gave back my ticket stub to see Eric Steel’s new documentary The Bridge , I felt mentally prepared to see what the film’s brief online synopsis had described: almost two hours of research presented on the history of suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Once I stepped into the theater itself and the film started rolling, it became apparent that I had misunderstood the main idea; though The Bridge is about suicides off the Golden Gate, the filmmakers chose to opt out of interviewing historians and filming screenshots of city documents and instead presented their findings through actual footage of successful and failed suicides captured on film in 2004. The most significant thing about this film is the constant reappearance of master shots of the bridge itself; each lasts several seconds, and the tension in the theater increases immediately as the audience frantically searches the screen for a glimpse of someone jumping off. It’s as if the filmmakers wanted to trick the viewer, however, when the only thing visible from such a distance is a tiny splash below the bridge, perhaps hinting that the audience is being just as negligent of the victim’s existence as the people who were actually on the bridge at the time. Just as Andy Warhol used repetition to desensitize his viewers, Steel’s suicide footage makes the audience immune to witnessing mortal peril. Various shots of the bridge are interlaced with commentary from the victim’s friends and family, all of whom seem to speak in a matter-of-fact tone—as if the end their loved ones met was expected. The story of the demise of one man is stretched out throughout the entire film, with accompanying footage of his last hours on the bridge. In the end, he catapults himself backwards off the golden ledge and falls headfirst into the water. An official selection at the San Francisco Film Festival, The Bridge is a film worthy of attention and accolades. Its almost voyeur-like look into the psychology and humanity of suicide is one that the mainstream audience deserves to be exposed to.