Faith & Doubt at Ground Zero

PBS Video's cottage industry of 9/11-related releases begins to feel a little overextended in this Frontline report that aspires to nothing less than explaining Fate, God, Good, and Evil. An assortment of theologians and academics offer their opinions on what September 11, 2001 says about religion and how people either embrace or shun God in instances of terrible tragedy--slightly distanced observers, whose remarks are contrasted with comments by survivors of the WTC attacks and those who lost loved ones. The latter's rage, sadness, and struggles to comprehend the tragedies puts a specific human face on the same horrible 9/11 footage used in countless other specials. Bringing in a Holocaust survivor for a comparison of "evil" feels totally out-of-context, and the intercutting of nature footage--thunderclouds and crashing waves--as visual touchstones for elemental human emotions seems simplistic, but despite the clunky attempts to explain the unexplainable and to find sense in the face of madness, Faith & Doubt at Ground Zero still moves the viewer with the primal power of watching people from around the world make their pilgrimages to Ground Zero: no matter how many of the film's ambitious theological, ethical, and metaphysical arguments fail to connect, the final suggestion that Ground Zero has become hallowed ground seems uncontestable. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (D. Fienberg)