On Native Soil Summary

Review of On Native Soil In 2006, only five years after the most well-known attack of the 21st century, Linda Ellman completed her documentary, On Native Soil. The film went through the stories of several survivors of the 9/11 attack as well as the families of some victims, all of which were seeking answers as to how such a tragedy could happen here in the United States. At the time there had been growing hostilities between the U.S. and terrorist organizations of the Middle East, namely Al-Qaeda. There had been multiple attacks in America leading up to 9/11 that were not handled very effectively by counterterrorism efforts in the United States. As families sought a commission for the records leading up to the attack, the airline and government …show more content…
Because it was such a recent and controversial event there were no actual actors, rather only interviews and unedited footage of court cases which would make this film highly accurate. One of the only flaws, as aforementioned, was the lack of context about previous Al-Qaeda attacks and the minimal information as to why there were tensions between the Islamic extremists and America in the first place. These flaws are the only thing that keep the rating of this film to a 9 out of 10 stars on historical content. While this film was very riveting and heart moving overall, there is a lot of mixed feelings on whether to share this film with other students. Due to the content being on such a heavy, depressing topic, including actual footage of jumpers from the top floors of the towers as well as final phone calls from the deceased, my recommendation would stand that no student be exposed to all two hours of this film in a single sitting. This is by no means saying that the film should have pulled back any of these things, as they are important to understand how a poorly equipped nation can send so many into desperation and