Television review: Memory Box: Echoes of 9/11

Parents, spouses, and friends of those killed, are still in shock, still raw, still trying to make sense of their tragedy. It might’ve been healing for some of them to try and talk through their pain, but it feels exploitative watching it. Observing the survivors, onlookers, and volunteers trying to process their helplessness and guilt isn’t much easier.

A young Jewish Orthodox bystander, Eric Tischler brings a welcome matter of factness, “I saw someone distraught and tried to help them, then I took some photos because what else was I meant to do”, but with others there’s an earnest solipsism that makes you wince. A young man rapping comes across less as a means of coping, and more as a way to centre himself. Another man wails about one of the terrorists who’d been living in the US, “How could he not fall in love with us?”

Fortunately this is a documentary of two halves, and as some of the same subjects return to the box 20 years later, the bubble of imagery that keeps 9/11 frozen is popped. Through their continued stories of how they’ve healed and moved on, on the influence on their lives and the lessons learnt, in how they’ve physically aged, and in recent events and how America has changed, we get a welcome sense of time having passed. It’s just a shame it takes so long to get there. Watching this documentary is like a branch you’ve been staring at for a long time eventually becoming dislodged from the bank and pushed further down the river. There is satisfaction, but also relief that now you might finally be able to see it from a different angle.