In 1971, 20th Century-Fox scored a huge commercial and critical hit with The French Connection, a hard-boiled thriller about the largest heroin bust in New York City’s history. Directed by William Friedkin and starring Gene Hackman as Det. Eddie “Popeye” Doyle, the picture presented a gritty, but idealized portrait of the police at work. In 1972, wanting to capitalize on the picture’s success, Fox decided to produce a sequel, a continuation of Doyle’s pursuit of Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), the French drug lord who eludes capture at the end of Friedkin’s film. The studio decided to have the picture shot in Marseilles, a port city in the south of France where heroin production thrived in the early Seventies. Friedkin, however, was uninterested in working on a sequel and so the chiefs at Fox approached John Frankenheimer, who had lived in France and spoke the language fluently. Although Frankenheimer had enjoyed a great deal of success in the Sixties with pictures like The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May and Grand Prix, nearly a decade had passed since he’d scored a box office hit. The opportunity to work on a high-budget picture of this sort aroused his interest and he accepted the offer.

The original script for French Connection II was prepared by Robert Dillon, whose previous credits included, most notably, Roger Corman’s X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes.  Once production commenced in the summer of 1974, however, Frankenheimer decided that he needed to have his script re-worked. For the job, he recruited the novelist Pete Hamill, who’d actually known Eddie Egan, the New York City police detective upon whom Hackman’s character Popeye Doyle was based. In 2006, Hamill recalled his involvement in the project:

[When Frankenheimer] called me from Marseilles, asking me to help, I said I would try to get there within two days. "Why not one?" he said, and laughed nervously. I never asked why he called me. Someone hand-delivered a script to my place in New York and I read it on the plane.

       John, at that time, had a major problem. He had already shot nine days of the existing script. He had developed a reputation for going over budget, so had no flexibility. He couldn't re-shoot what was already in the can.

       That gave me a problem too, since I had to write around the existing pieces, which, as always, had been shot out of order. It was like working on a jigsaw puzzle. The basic problem was that Hackman, a great movie actor, had nothing to act. And the reason for that was that Roy Scheider was not in the sequel, and Hackman had nobody to bounce his lines off. He would never talk to a French cop the way he talked to Scheider in the Billy Friedkin original.

        ….My first work was on the following day's pages, trying to make the character sound like Popeye Doyle….Within a day-and-a-half  (with naps in between) I had written enough for them to keep shooting for six or seven days….Hackman was ecstatic. He had something to act!

French Connection II begins shortly after the first film ends, with Doyle arriving in France on April Fool’s Day. As the only person who can identify Charnier, Doyle has been sent by his supervisors to assist the Marseilles police as they search for the elusive kingpin. Vulgar and loud, Doyle alienates himself quickly from his counterparts in Marseilles, a group of “narcs” led by the level-headed Henri Barthelmy (Bernard Fresson). Annoyed by Barthelmy’s cautious approach to law enforcement, Doyle soon sets out on his own. In his porkpie hat and Hawaiian shirts, he cuts a clownish figure on the foreign city’s streets and he is quickly spotted and subsequently abducted by Charnier’s men. Imprisoning him in a slum hotel for three weeks, Charnier injects Doyle with heroin, with the hope that this will loosen his lips. The tactic breaks the detective, transforming him into a helpless addict. But it doesn’t yield any helpful information and Charnier returns the captive to the police. As he explains to Doyle, just before he frees him: “We take you back, Doyle, to your friends. They are looking for you everywhere and making it difficult for me to operate.” 

Renewal invariably follows demoralization in many of Frankenheimer’s pictures and the same happens here. Forced by Barthelmy to quit his addiction “cold turkey,” Doyle suffers horribly, bursting into tears at one point. But he makes it through and sets out on his own to locate the hotel where he was kept prisoner. Once he finds it, he sets the building on fire and snags one of Charnier’s men. The goon provides information which eventually leads Doyle and his French counterparts to the lab where Charnier’s people process heroin. Charnier rushes off, though, as the police close in, just as he did in the first movie. But Doyle, weak and limping, runs after him and a chase commences through the congested city, ending when the detective spots his adversary sailing out of the harbor on a yacht. Drawing his gun from the holster he wears on his ankle, Doyle fires two shots into Charnier’s chest, presumably killing him. But Frankenheimer closes the movie at this point, denying his viewers a denouement of any sort, leaving open the possibility that the pursuit may continue in the future.

 French Connection II is an often harrowing examination of the dangers that result when people flout the law for personal gain. Charnier, of course, may be the most offensive example of this criminal self-centeredness. A bon vivant, he uses the money he earns from his drugs business to make his life exceedingly comfortable, spending it on fine clothes, hunting trips and beautiful women. His success, however, rests upon a willingness to exploit human weakness, a great sin in itself. Yet, as Frankenheimer shows us, it also has a terrible, imitative effect, breeding a culture of addicts and thieves who, like Charnier, seize upon the weak. Such is the case with an old woman in the hotel, who steals Doyle’s watch. The problem not only transcends gender, age and nationality, but occupation, too. A sleazy U.S. Army general (Ed Lauter) is one of Charnier’s collaborators.

Though Doyle has no apparent interest in financial gain, he is similarly guilty of flouting the law for private reasons, sidestepping civil liberties and human rights when they interfere with his pursuit. To some degree, this brutal approach is effective, leading him and Barthelmy to Charnier’s heroin. But it is also ugly. Early in the film, for instance, Doyle amuses himself as he explains to a suspect:

I’m going to work on your arms. I’ll set ’em over a curb. And I’m going to use them for a trampoline. I’m going to jump up and down on them. Right? Then your kneecaps. One. Two. Kneecaps. Oatmeal. I’m going to make oatmeal out of your…kneecaps. And when I get done with you, you are going to put me right in Charnier’s lap.

Yet Doyle, despite these repellant qualities, is difficult to reject completely. Far from his New York City stomping grounds, the detective, like the fish on the tables that appear at the beginning of the film, is out of his element, completely separated from people who think, act and speak like him. Certainly, he behaves in a ludicrous manner frequently, translating the word “mayonnaise” into French and ordering “el scotcho” at a bar. But the character’s basic problem, the alienation felt by the émigré, is hardly unique or strange; and because of this, in spite of his many defects, he is recognizable, understandable and sympathetic.  

Like the first French Connection, Frankenheimer’s picture is a “police procedural,” a film that traces the efforts of law enforcement officials as they conduct an investigation. In the middle of this movie, however, the director breaks from the genre’s most important convention by halting the detective hero’s pursuit, confining him first to the cell-like room of the hotel and then the basement jail of the Marseille police station. Some critics have maligned this turn in the narrative. Roger Ebert, in his 1975 review, complained that it brings “the movie to a standstill. The plot, the pursuit, the quarry, are all forgotten during Hackman’s one-man show, and it’s a flaw the movie doesn’t overcome.” These sequences do slow the story’s pace a bit, but they nevertheless serve an important thematic function. In many of Frankenheimer’s films, extreme suffering gives rise to important changes in his protagonists’ personalities. For Doyle, the dialectal torture of addiction and withdrawal restores the drive and commitment that characterized his pursuit of Charnier in the first film. During the first third of French Connection II, that is, Doyle is distracted and ineffectual, spending much of his time drinking, carousing and picking fights with the people who can help him. But following the experience with heroin, he returns to the dirty Marseilles streets single-minded, not only avoiding drink and women, but working closely with Barthelmy. He may or may not capture Charnier—we aren’t allowed to know—but he certainly scores his revenge, besting him with the two bullets he fires into his chest. 

Though French Connection II is one of the bleakest pictures Frankenheimer made, it is also one of the most thrilling, thanks to spectacular sequences like the burning of the slum hotel and the final chase, when Doyle runs after Charnier along the Marseilles harbor. The director realized that the exaggerated quality of these scenes could arouse disbelief and thus he tried to make them seem as authentic as possible. He explains on the commentary he recorded for the film’s DVD release:

The key to doing a movie like this is to make every incident, every moment of the movie as real and believable as you can. Once you, the audience, feel betrayed by me, once you feel out of the movie, once you feel,  ‘Oh these are only actors and this is fake and this doesn’t look right,’ then the movie’s over for you, then everything that happens after that doesn’t work. But if I can keep you involved and keep you believing this looks rights this looks real, then I’m doing my job. And that goes for the costumes, that goes for the sets, that goes for the extra that’s way in the back of the room. One little thing that’s not right can turn you off the whole movie.

To achieve the verisimilitude he needed to make these scenes work, the director used several tactics. He and his cameraman Claude Renoir employed shooting techniques borrowed from cinéma-vérité, filming Marseilles’ buildings, its streets and its citizens with handheld cameras and hidden cameras. He and production designer Jacques Saulnier built sets which they modeled after real places, like the city’s police station, a jail and the bottom-rung hotel. And Charnier’s lab, incredibly, was built under the guidance of a group of Corsican heroin dealers who had taken an interest in the film. The director also hired non-actors whenever he could. The doctors who treat Popeye after his abduction, for instance, were real doctors.

When French Connection II opened in the spring of 1975, the reviews it received were generally favorable and its performance at the box office was strong. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby, for instance, wrote:

"The concerns of “French Connection II” are not much different from those of old Saturday-afternoon movie serials that used to place their supermen  in jeopardy and then figure ways of getting them out. The difference is in   the quality of the supermen and in their predicaments. Popeye is a colorful and interesting — though hardly noble — character, and when the Marseilles drug people kidnap him, forcibly create a heroin habit in him, and then release him, you have a very special kind of jeopardy that the film and Mr. Hackman exploit most effectively. The perverse intensity and the anguish in these sequences recall some of Mr. Frankenheimer's best work in “The Manchurian Candidate”.

Director: John Erick Dowdle 
Stars: Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, Columbus Short 
Studio: Screen Gems

The Plot: What happened to the people who were locked inside an apartment building by a CDC-issued quarantine? The only evidence left after the quarantine has been lifted is a videotape shot by a TV reporter (Carpenter) and her cameraman (Harris) who were investigating the initial 911 call …

BODY OF LIES

Director: Ridley Scott 
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

The Plot: In Jordan, an ex-journalist (DiCaprio) working to locate an Al Qaeda leader for the CIA faces pressure from an agent (Crowe) for whom failure is not an option.

ROCKNROLLA

Director: Guy Ritchie 
Stars: Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Idris Elba
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

The Plot: In London, a real-estate scam puts millions of pounds up for grabs, naturally attraction the attention of some of the city’s scrappiest tough guys (Butler, Elba) its more established underworld players (Wilkinson), and others — all of whom are looking to get rich quick.

CITY OF EMBER

Director: Gil Kenan 
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Toby Jones, Bill Murray
Studio: Fox-Walden

The Plot: For generations, the underground City of Ember has been the only light in an otherwise dark world. But when the city’s generator begins to fail, teenagers Lina (Ronan) and Doon (Treadaway) desperately race to help their fellow citizens escape before the lights go out permanently. To do so, they will have to search Ember high and low for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of their city’s origins.

HAPPY GO LUCKY

Director: Mike Leigh 
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Samuel Roukin 
Studio: Miramax Films

The Plot: A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy (Hawkins), a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.

- Jeff Bridges compares “Tr2n” to Peter Jackson’s “King Kong,” briefly talks sci-fi sequel. (Guardian)

- Brandon Routh, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Gil Bellows join Sam Jackson and Michael Sheen in terrorist thriller “Unthinkable.” (THR)

- Posters from “The Wolfman” pop up at Universal City’s Halloween Horror Nights. (Shock Till You Drop)

- “Say hi to your mother for me!” Andy Samberg’s dead on impression highlights hilarious SNL skit, “Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals.” (Hulu)

• Director/Script: Kazimierz Karabasz
• Camera: Stanisław Niedbalski
• Editor: Helena Białkowska
• Sound: Halina Paszkowska
• Music: Zbigniew Jeżewski
• Narrator: Tadeusz Łomnicki
• Production Manager: Jerzy Dorożyński
• Production Company: WFD

After making short films at the Łódź Film School (among them Day In Day Out/Jak co dzień…, 1955) and collaborating with Władysław Ślesicki on Where the Devil Says Goodnight (Gdzie diabeł mówi dobranoc, 1956) and People from an Empty Zone (Ludzie z pustego obszaru, 1957), Kazimierz Karabasz made his solo professional directing debut with this lyrical, poeticised portrait of the run-down Warsaw suburb of Powiśle, originally part of a series entitled Walking Around Warsaw (Wędrówki po Warszawie). It touches on a lot of topics familiar from other Polish documentaries - notably the bombed-out ruins from Brzozowa Street (Ulica Brzozowa, 1947), Warsaw ‘56 (Warszawa 1956) and Lublin Old Town (Lubelska starówka, 1956) and the topographical concerns of City on Islands (Miasto na wyspach, 1958) - but Karabasz seems completely uninterested in exploring wider social/political issues. Indeed, the commentary here is reduced to mere wisps, and many of Karabasz’ subsequent films would dispense with it altogether.

This is hardly surprising, when one considers the eloquence of Stanisław Niedbalski’s images when married to Zbigniew Jeżewski’s wistful woodwind score (which runs more or less continuously throughout). This combination is first seen in the opening shot, as the camera adopts a high vantage point to pan around the city’s skyline before slowly zooming in to the buildings in Powiśle as the main title comes up on screen. A cat strolls across an otherwise deserted courtyard that is otherwise only populated by cushions. A tap drips aimlessly onto the ground, filling a visibly eroded dimple, and a small girl carries freshly-filled bottles of water (one of many simple, unforced images of children that pepper the running time). The music swaps woodwinds for a barrel-organ, and the soundtrack becomes diegetic, as an elderly man sets up in the courtyard and cranks old folk tunes out of it. The apartment block’s windows are mostly open, but there’s no visible sign of any appreciation.

In the commercial centre of Powiśle, Karabasz and Niedbalski seem as interested in a passing dog, a flock of pigeons or a pair of children’s overalls hanging outside a shop window, than they do in human passers-by. The music is occasionally interrupted by the sight and sound of a train passing on an overhead line, which the narrator highlights as the only visible means of counting the hours. A woman yawns and shields her eyes from the sun. A man pulls a heavy cart by himself, his female companion merely steering it. Two elderly women gossip, one grabbing the other’s wrist to emphasise a point. Patients in the Solec hospital sit on the balcony and look aimlessly out into the distance - one watches a blonde woman as she leans out of the window of one of the trains, a fleeting connection with the outside world.

Powiśle, according to Karabasz, seems frozen in time, though not in a way that seems especially attractive or useful to nostalgists. Several decades ago, an unnamed writer claimed that no other part of Warsaw had so much charm and ambience, but Powiśle was bombed almost flat during the Uprising of 1944 - this is dealt with obliquely, presumably because Karabasz assumed that a contemporary Polish audience wouldn’t need the details spelt out a mere fourteen years after the events. The signs of daily life amid the ruins recall similar images in Brzozowa Street, though the effect is inverted: instead of life thriving among the rubble, here narrator idly muses on why anyone would want to live in Powiśle when other parts of Warsaw are clearly more appealing.

Somewhat anthropomorphically, Karabasz attempts to ascribe human characteristics to Powiśle: it’s been “badly wounded”, and is “lonely”. City on Islands had a similar concern for the character of its locations, but Karabasz is more interested in poetry than polemic. His quiet, understated film is in sharp contrast to the stridency of many of the other documentaries in the so-called “black series”, but it points the way towards a far more lyrical approach to documentary that would burst into full flower with Karabasz’s masterpieces of the early 1960s (The Musicians/Muzykanci, People on the Road/Ludzie w drodze, both 1960), other films that show rather than tell, evoke rather than explain.

The film is included on PWA’s Polish School of the Documentary: The Black Series double-DVD set (Region 0 PAL). The source print is generally in good physical condition, though occasional exposure fluctuations cause the picture to flicker slightly, and there’s a modicum of minor surface damage. The soundtrack is fine by 1950s mono standards, with the music coming across well. Subtitles are generally accurate, the occasional typo notwithstanding.

]]> Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:37:18 +0000 ember ember escape spots enjoy time film race forever lights Two new City of Ember clips hit http://www.cinemaratty.com/article/f60651310645e397e6ec26c1f2bf1c0d http://www.cinemaratty.com/article/f60651310645e397e6ec26c1f2bf1c0d

Here's a new "City of Ember" clip that was recently released by LatinoReview. Due in theaters on Oct. 10, 2008, the film focuses on two teenagers who race against time to help the citizens of Ember escape before the city’s powerful generator breaks down and all the lights go out forever.

Tim Robbins, Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook star. Enjoy the footage just above.

I know I’m a few days late on the 9/11 tributes/remembrances/cleansings, but it was the actual day and all of the side-effects that really made me decide to put something down. This isn’t film-related in the sense that it’s not specifically about a particular movie, but it does apply to how my entire sensibility has been shaped. And I’ll probably delete it at some point anyway.

You know, I read someone who wasn’t American, Canadian actually, remark that this continued need for holding onto September 11 as a day of tragedy was somehow unhealthy. No, I don’t think so. Those on the outside really can’t understand it. Anyone who wasn’t raised in the United States can’t relate to the extreme safety Americans had previously enjoyed. It may seem naive, but we knew nothing bad could happen because our country had fought and won war after war, away from our soil. Hiroshima and Nagasaki has always seemed like some form of cathartic, if horrible, retribution for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, even if Hawaii wasn’t even a state at the time. I’m not a believer in manifest destiny, but I had always been a beneficiary. It wasn’t just that attacking the United States without provocation seemed impossible, it was downright unthinkable.

Looking back, that doesn’t seem to matter very much. The mindset prior to the attacks is of limited interest. Had they been fully rectified, this date wouldn’t hold the same sense of prolonged terror, of a destruction once thought unbelievable, as it now does. After seven years, the actual attacks no longer seem to be the most tragic part of that day. More discouraging is that every aspect of American life has decreased in the interim and 9/11 served as the catalyst for all of it. Leaders were retained using that day as some rancid form of accomplishment. Wars were ignited that are still ongoing and seemingly without a foreseeable end. The trickle down has been a crippled economy and an electorate as divided philosophically as ever. The entire notion of red states and blue states is disgusting in itself.

My political and ideological beliefs are my own and not really for public consumption, but I find it impossible to point to a positive effect of 9/11. The unity apparently in place immediately afterwards was entirely squandered. Flag pins made in China aren’t proper substitutes for united patriotism. Seven years later and it’s very discouraging. Half of my country seems inclined to believe and support one thing while the rest leans in the other direction. That’s not healthy. I miss even the idea of true unity behind anything because I wasn’t here after September 11, 2001. My memories are all secondhand. I was instead, rather illogically, concerned with not being harmed while trekking across Europe. Well, not too concerned. The group I was with as part of a study abroad program had to be alert at all times for possible harm, but I still crisscrossed the continent without much pause.

An American accent in Prague didn’t seem to be overly risky. While my country began air attacks on Afghanistan, I was fairly content in western Ireland, not too worried with my plans to visit Liverpool and London. I can remember a pitch black, slightly unsober jaunt along the coast back to our hostel, by myself, as my travel mates were trying to decide whether they should lie low or continue with their plans. Just the idea that I would have had to watch my back now seems silly, but that was how vulnerable Americans felt at the time. Just our nationality could have been targeted regardless of the location. Of course, nothing like that transpired, and no one seemed to care about my accent anywhere I went. The 23-hour train to Sweden even uncovered person after person who spoke English probably as well as I could. Pressure-enforced paranoia is a dangerous thing.

Now the country is lulled again into feeling mostly safe. Each year a new poll comes out showing how Americans are less concerned with another attack. What happened on 9/11 belongs to all of America equally, but I’ve always found it strange that the places directly affected tend to hold different political views than the midsection of the country. In 2004, the cities that had been attacked picked one person as the best man to further protect us while nearly everyone else picked someone else, the eventual winner. With a new election just weeks away, these uncertainties and fears once again feel necessary. Those unhappy with every direction 9/11 has lead to can put their focus on someone and something new and different. The others can do whatever it is they continue doing.

It does get tiresome having to deal every year with a day as linked to tragedy as July 4th is to independence and liberty. Still, I think it’s necessary, and I don’t really find “moving on” as a legitimate option. I had never been to New York City before 9/11, never saw the World Trade Center towers, but living in the area for five years now has taught me a few things. For one, there’s no more unified place in the nation. Any prejudices are individual because the city’s diversity will not allow any kind of concerted inequality. People in the area are bound by a location and everything else is secondary. Furthermore, the reminders of that day are absolutely everywhere. Stickers, plaques, shirts, patches - it’s inescapable and that too is okay. Anytime something out of the ordinary occurs, those events are immediately brought to mind. The city has recovered, but it will be in remission for many more years to come. I’m probably right there on the same level.

You know, I read someone who wasn’t American, Canadian actually, remark that this continued need for holding onto September 11 as a day of tragedy was somehow unhealthy. No, I don’t think so. Those on the outside really can’t understand it. Anyone who wasn’t raised in the United States can’t relate to the extreme safety Americans had previously enjoyed. It may seem naive, but we knew nothing bad could happen because our country had fought and won war after war, away from our soil. Hiroshima and Nagasaki has always seemed like some form of cathartic, if horrible, retribution for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, even if Hawaii wasn’t even a state at the time. I’m not a believer in manifest destiny, but I had always been a beneficiary. It wasn’t just that attacking the United States without provocation seemed impossible, it was downright unthinkable.

Looking back, that doesn’t seem to matter very much. The mindset prior to the attacks is of limited interest. Had they been fully rectified, this date wouldn’t hold the same sense of prolonged terror, of a destruction once thought unbelievable, as it now does. After seven years, the actual attacks no longer seem to be the most tragic part of that day. More discouraging is that every aspect of American life has decreased in the interim and 9/11 served as the catalyst for all of it. Leaders were retained using that day as some rancid form of accomplishment. Wars were ignited that are still ongoing and seemingly without a foreseeable end. The trickle down has been a crippled economy and an electorate as divided philosophically as ever. The entire notion of red states and blue states is disgusting in itself.

My political and ideological beliefs are my own and not really for public consumption, but I find it impossible to point to a positive effect of 9/11. The unity apparently in place immediately afterwards was entirely squandered. Flag pins made in China aren’t proper substitutes for united patriotism. Seven years later and it’s very discouraging. Half of my country seems inclined to believe and support one thing while the rest leans in the other direction. That’s not healthy. I miss even the idea of true unity behind anything because I wasn’t here after September 11, 2001. My memories are all secondhand. I was instead, rather illogically, concerned with not being harmed while trekking across Europe. Well, not too concerned. The group I was with as part of a study abroad program had to be alert at all times for possible harm, but I still crisscrossed the continent without much pause.

An American accent in Prague didn’t seem to be overly risky. While my country began air attacks on Afghanistan, I was fairly content in western Ireland, not too worried with my plans to visit Liverpool and London. I can remember a pitch black, slightly unsober jaunt along the coast back to our hostel, by myself, as my travel mates were trying to decide whether they should lie low or continue with their plans. Just the idea that I would have had to watch my back now seems silly, but that was how vulnerable Americans felt at the time. Just our nationality could have been targeted regardless of the location. Of course, nothing like that transpired, and no one seemed to care about my accent anywhere I went. The 23-hour train to Sweden even uncovered person after person who spoke English probably as well as I could. Pressure-enforced paranoia is a dangerous thing.

Now the country is lulled again into feeling mostly safe. Each year a new poll comes out showing how Americans are less concerned with another attack. What happened on 9/11 belongs to all of America equally, but I’ve always found it strange that the places directly affected tend to hold different political views than the midsection of the country. In 2004, the cities that had been attacked picked one person as the best man to further protect us while nearly everyone else picked someone else, the eventual winner. With a new election just weeks away, these uncertainties and fears once again feel necessary. Those unhappy with every direction 9/11 has lead to can put their focus on someone and something new and different. The others can do whatever it is they continue doing.

It does get tiresome having to deal every year with a day as linked to tragedy as July 4th is to independence and liberty. Still, I think it’s necessary, and I don’t really find “moving on” as a legitimate option. I had never been to New York City before 9/11, never saw the World Trade Center towers, but living in the area for five years now has taught me a few things. For one, there’s no more unified place in the nation. Any prejudices are individual because the city’s diversity will not allow any kind of concerted inequality. People in the area are bound by a location and everything else is secondary. Furthermore, the reminders of that day are absolutely everywhere. Stickers, plaques, shirts, patches - it’s inescapable and that too is okay. Anytime something out of the ordinary occurs, those events are immediately brought to mind. The city has recovered, but it will be in remission for many more years to come. I’m probably right there on the same level.