Two days ago I went to a screening of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen as part of the Toronto International Film Festival. It was a pleasant experience - salmon were fished, the Yemen was visited, witticisms were exchanged. As with all TIFF screenings on September 11th, 2011, this one was preceded by a short four-minute film. The film, titled “Solace in the Dark”, was commissioned by TIFF to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

In principle, there was nothing surprising or problematic about the decision to commission a short commemorative piece: the 10th anniversary of the attacks is a reasonable point at which to reflect on a shocking tragedy that claimed the lives of thousands, and whose ripples are still being felt the world over. Moreover, many organizations and individuals commemorated the September 11th anniversary, and it seemed reasonable that TIFF might as well. A memorial short was also unlikely to generate anything but positive press - as the puff pieces now circulating in the media confirm.

In practice, though, is what matters - because the thought of a commemorative film ultimately has to take some concrete form. And the form that TIFF’s September 11 tribute took was that of an obnoxious, self-important retrospective that trivialized the tragedy and suffering of that day. 

 The film starts out basically as one would expect; moody piano music and some out-of-focus shots interspersed with people recalling their initial reactions to the news that a plane had flown in to the World Trade Center. A cut to smoke slowly rising over Manhattan. Someone says “the world would never be the same”, and you immediately resign yourself to a well-shot but somewhat cliched retelling of the emotional impact of September 11th. Except, you’re wrong, because about half way through you realize something. This isn’t a commemoration of September 11th - it’s a tribute to TIFF itself. What started off as a run-of-the-mill memorial has become a narcissistic exercise in self-aggrandizement.
 
(If you haven’t seen the video yet, take a look for yourself at the top of this post, so that I might have a better hope of articulating the source of my rage.)
 
It takes only two minutes before you realize that TIFF is not the setting of the film, but rather the hero. A woman tells us that “people were definitely looking to the film festival for guidance”, a man is “amazed at how incredibly calm [TIFF director and CEO] Piers Handling was”. TIFF executives talk about how difficult it was to face the cameras that day, to decide what should happen to the festival. We hear someone say that they “don’t know what [they] would have done with [them]self … if the festival stopped on that day”. We’re told that the decision to continue the screenings (but cancel the parties) was “defiant and affirming”. The piano music becomes hopeful, and we’re told that “film can be restorative”. We hear about what an “amazing experience” it was to attend the first September 12th screening as the festival “just started up again”.  
 
Somehow, over the course of four minutes, one of the greatest tragedies that America has ever experienced had been recast entirely in terms of the Toronto International Film Festival. The lack of perspective is so complete as to be almost sickening; the sense of TIFF’s self-importance almost nauseating. There is no mention of the thousands who died, of their families, friends or loved ones; even less of the many others who would die around the world as a result of what happened that day. Instead we hear of the struggles of actors and directors trying to find flights home, and of the difficult PR decisions that had to be made by festival executives. The decision to continue doing exactly what the festival was doing the day before - minus some swanky parties that might look distasteful - is presented as a triumph over adversity. Gone are the original heroes - the firefighters, the New Yorkers, the passengers of United 93. In their place stands only TIFF, an unlikely beacon of hope for us all. 
 
The problem is, in part, one of tone. The piano music. The soft focus. The black background and somber colours. At 3:18 into the video, we’re presented with uncut-style footage of TIFF Director and CEO Piers Handling struggling to find words to describe his emotions on the morning of the 12th. Only he’s not talking about loss or sacrifice in New York; he’s talking about watching a movie in Toronto. While all of these techniques would be appropriate for a sleek, modern piece about the actual victims of September 11, applying the same sense of gravitas to the relatively insignificant experiences of a film festival located in an entirely different country comes across as borderline offensive. TIFF is not the New York City Fire Department, and Toronto is not New York. Americans died; TIFF thought about its schedule. These attempts to solemnize the trivial only manage to trivialize the solemn, and obscure the real importance of this day. Somber words and weighty techniques are best reserved for moments that deserve them.
 
It is true that in some sense September 11th affected all of us - but that does not mean that we all have an equal share in the grief and suffering doled out that day. The core failing of TIFF’s commemoration is that it does not fundamentally understand this; it mistakes far-reaching consequence for far-reaching loss. We may have all been affected, but we were not all bereaved. We might all feel sympathy and sadness, but we did not all experience loss. Oddly, for a brief moment the film recognizes this, as we are told that “The rest of the world wasn’t necessarily affected on a visceral level like the Americans were”. But the core of the movie belies this sentiment, and rewrites the September 11th narrative with the festival at its centre.
 

This persistent self-promotion is not helped by the film’s apparent willingness to assault us with product placement. Every shot of a newspaper in the film - of which there are many - is a shot of the Toronto Star. The most blatant example occurs at 1:12 in to the film, when we see a photograph of three people reading the Star with the CN Tower in the background, “AMERICA UNDER ATTACK” plastered across each of their papers (amusingly, this scene is cut from some online versions of the film, despite having been shown in theatres). Indeed, if you saw this short at a screening on Sunday, you’re already aware that it was introduced with a special thanks to the Toronto Star’s producer, John Cruickshank. I suppose we should not be surprised - TIFF was so oblivious to the distastefulness of turning September 11th into an advertisement for themselves that they likely took little issue with letting one of their sponsors join in.
 
September 11th cast a long shadow. Nothing that has been written here is meant to say that those who were not directly involved escaped untouched, or that only those closest to the tragedy have a right to remember or to grieve. But that does not mean that we should exaggerate our place in that day’s narrative so that we might seem more central to the tragedy - nor should we accept it from others. In short, September 11 is not an excuse to reinvent history in order to tell the world how awesome you are. The Toronto International Film Festival should be ashamed for using one of the greatest human tragedies in American history as a vehicle for self-aggrandizement.