Diameter of the Bomb

The S-Man and I took in another great documentary last night courtesy of our friends at Netflix.

Diameter of the Bomb tells the story of a 2002 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that took the lives of nineteen people, many of them children, and seriously wounded fifty others who were passengers traveling on crowded city bus number 32A on June 18, 2002.

The film details the rippling effect of the tragedy: the hospital treating the victims, the fire fighters first on the horrific scene, the families of the dead, the bomber, the Israli police, two countries seemingly irretrievably locked in a death match.

No doubt about it, this was a grim, difficult movie to watch. At the same time it is a story so important, the human suffering quotient so brutally high, that it is a story simply must be told and witnessed.

Conflict in the Middle East is something we hear about so often that I think we sometimes just become sensitized to it. For me at least, the situation is really brought home when I see something like Diameter of the Bomb.

At the time of the World Trade Center attacks, I remember reading in the press that Israel helped us out forensecially with cutting edge technology they had developed to help identify even the smallest human remains. The need for this is graphically illustrated in the film when you understand the incredible force of the explosive device used by the bomber that reduced many of the victims to tiny fragments of flesh, eyes, fingers.

The families of the victims must give blood samples and then wait up to twelve agonizing hours while technicians race to to relieve their suffering only to the extent they they can know for sure what they already know: that their loved ones are indeed among the dead. The pain and suffering on the faces of the parents forced to live this nightmare is just unimaginable.

Films like Diameter of the Bomb, often times, on difficult and important subjects, just aren't the kind of thing you find on the shelf at BallBusters. More and more, Netflix is on the cutting edge of not just bringing films in wide release into our homes, but with their subsidiary company "Red Envelope Entertainment", they are also seeking out quality undistributed films we would never see any other way.

And, if that isn't enough, REE is now also in the business of actually funding indie filmmakers and has exec produced John Waters' "This Filthy World" and the documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" and, perhaps most nobably, "Sherrybaby", a film I recommended here a few weeks ago starring Maggie Gyllenhaal about a mother recently released from prison struggling to have a relationship with the daughter she abandoned.

So! All set to join Netflix and watch some important and riveting documentaries? I thought so! Here are my top ten recommendations (in no particular order):

Capturing the Friedmans

Stevie

A Crude Awakening

Diameter of the Bomb

The Future of Food

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

Terrorstorm

Hacking Democracy

Born into Brothels

Death in Gaza (2004)

The War Profiteers

After Innocence

The Devil and Daniel Johnson

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Okay, so that's more than ten--sue me!

Anyway, like I always say--real life, baby. It's the biggest trip of all.