The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco has always been a well-known and fascinating human creation that has attracted people from all over the world to admire the beauty of the city. After watching the film, such a positive impression from the bridge that I have always had was substituted by sadness, sorrow, and anxiety due to the suicides for which the bridge is notorious. The documentary touched me emotionally with the multiple stories of the people who did not see the reason to live and ended their lives by jumping from the bridge. The facts were shocking; the authors documented that people commit suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge every two weeks (Steele, 2006). Such an alarming rate demonstrates the urgency of updating the quality of mental services to the most tentative problems people have.
Indeed, the way the film director incorporated the forage of seemingly typical days on the bridge with the stories about people who committed suicide there has a strong effect on the viewers. The film emphasizes the problem of suicide that has existed for many years by demonstrating how common it is nowadays. In such a manner, the striking numbers of intentional deaths and the mental health issues reported by the interviewees in the film help promote the prevention of suicide and improving mental health services. People should not remain indifferent when they know about the problem and observe it worsen each day. Decisive actions should be taken to save people’s lives by providing them help when they most need it.
As with any provoking story, the film portraying the Golden Gate Bridge’s attractiveness for jumpers obtains its fans and might unintentionally romanticize suicide. However, the authors did their best to eliminate such an implication by providing multiple refutations of the assumption that jumping off the bridge is the easiest and painless suicide method. Indeed, the interviews with the autopsy specialists demonstrate how damaging and painful it is (Steele, 2006). Therefore, the content of the film is aimed at raising awareness about suicide and the insecurity of the Golden Gate Bridge, which makes it so attractive to jumpers. However, the overall idea of the feelings one might obtain once jumping off such a monumental bridge might be encouraging for vulnerable individuals to make an attempt.
Reference
Steele, E. (2006). The bridge. Alive Mind Cinema.