Reply #236: Burlington, Washington Friday Matinee SOLD OUT

[kurtyboy]

I figured that the afternoon (2:10) show would have plenty of room, but I went early anyway because I was meeting friends. I bought my ticket and asked the seller how things were going--he told me that there were four seats left. I don't think my friends got in--I moved quikly and got one of the last open chairs in the theater.

There were NO disruptions--it was the most respectful audience I can remember in a movie thater--usually there's a few folks chatting about the plot and so on. I responded to the disaster in 2001, working for FEMA. I girded myself for what I would witness in this film, and I was strong--I stayed, in spite of an urge to rush out when the black screen & soundtrack took over. I sat silent, tears streaming down both sides of my face.

I was OK after that...

Until some of the other scenes with the death, the grieving, the emotion of an Iraqi woman screaming into a camera, "Where are You God?" or words to that effect. At those moments, the three young women next to me (who had been all giggles leading into the showing) were not silent--they were sobbing aloud. And I listened, and I could hear more sobbing and weeping throughout the theater, and I began to sob myself.

Thirty hours later, I still weep. I should actually write, "Three years later, I'm still messed up." And I didn't lose a family member--I didn't give my son to the war--I didn't lose anything but part of my mind, and perhaps all of my country.

This film helps me--I can begin to turn my emotions toward positive cahnge--and I will.