A purge followed. Friends disappeared, possessions vanished, habits changed, photographs vanished. It felt like a cleanse, a cleansing burst of rage aimed at resetting the self.
Common wisdom says that radical change asks for leaving the past behind as quickly as possible. The instinct is sound. When there is a new horizon—another country, another faith, a fresh perspective—it helps to strike a deep, new foundation. Different chapters rarely stay aligned with one another.
That is what Italian Valeria Collina did. Three lives lived before a turning point, and one life that began after the turning point. The shift stretches the self in unexpected ways.
Questions emerge about mothers of murderers. How do they cope, how do they feel? A terrible creature is born into the world by a mother’s embrace, her smile traded for the future’s shadow. The impulse to cut away is powerful—perhaps even necessary for survival.
A lone elderly woman, veiled, sits in near darkness and looks straight into the camera. A confession unfolds from a man whose truth-telling the cinema rarely accepts, and the exchange feels awkward, tinged with disdain and fear.
Then an extraordinary disaster arises, one that seems to erase the tracks the engine needs to run. Rails and ties vanish, the train stalls, and a new direction must be found in the break of the moment.
Disasters recur, yet art often refuses to dissect them. No immediate artistic, social, or financial rewards appear in sight. The film’s title, After the Bridge, nods to The World After Auschwitz, a phrase that literature has used to probe how such horrors could arise in a civilized setting.
The documentary After the Bridge premiered yesterday at the Docker festival in Moscow, a festival that consistently curates documentary cinema with current relevance.
But there are films, and there are films. Some must be seen to be understood.
Many movies center on war, disaster, or people who resist profit from calamity. The camera often asks to tell the victim’s story, a choice that can feel simple, even manipulative, as audiences weep and box offices rise with awards and acclaim.
Here is a different approach: two victims from opposing sides are trapped in a moment with no exit, and within that space a fragile bond forms. The audience recognizes the sympathy for victims, while the killer remains distant and contested in moral light.
How is it possible, the crowd murmurs, when children are harmed and earlier norms collapse? Some argue that abnormal families exist, while others insist on the idea that what we call normal is simply a social construct. Philosophers and thinkers have weighed in on the question of evil, and the film invites such debates without flinching.
Even major tragedies are sometimes softened for easy consumption. Victims appear as purely good, perpetrators as bluntly pathological. Tragedy becomes marketable, its essence diluted, while the core crisis remains untouched.
Yet the film industry still preserves a canon of serious voices. Creators who craft work like After the Bridge pursue a deeper conversation, not just sensationalism.
In 2017 the London Bridge attack left a mark on many viewers. A van struck pedestrians, followed by knife attacks. Eight people were killed, and numerous others harmed. The attackers were stopped by police within minutes. Names and faces were handled with care in reporting, but the event remains a stark reminder of violence in the modern era.
Valeria, a dramatic figure in the narrative, shows remarkable composure. The writers guard this portrayal with dignity, avoiding sensational flirtation with the audience. The interview room becomes a place of restraint, not sensationalism.
Journalists probe the moment: Valeria, how do you feel now? What message would you offer to families of the victims? The response comes from a place of empathy and lived experience, refusing to oversimplify the tragedy. The reply is concise yet resonant, a readiness to acknowledge profound pain.
Following the attack, a call from Morocco reveals contact issues with a son who is missing. Authorities confirm only partial identification of suspects. The conversation moves to the personal domain as a daughter shares news about accompanying law enforcement. A refusal to share a phone is noted, the reason being a matter of procedure rather than sentiment. The news is stark: a son’s death is confirmed, magnifying the weight of grief.
The narrative shifts to the mother’s life after loss. Three lives intersecting first as Italian, Catholic, and actress; then Muslim, Moroccan, and mother; finally divorced and rooted in a uniquely shifted Italian identity. A devoted mother bears the moral burden of the world she inhabits. What fault lay with her child, and how should one judge his choices?
The son’s grave remains unnamed, a quiet testament to unresolved questions. A maternal relative refuses to attend the funeral, unable to reconcile the person she loved with the acts that unfolded. Yet the mother remains steadfast in her role, continuing to live with the consequences of the events.
Valeria, a former Catholic who now engages with a Catholic priest, embodies a search for common ground among faiths. The idea that belief defines humanity is challenged; humanism, born of the Enlightenment, stands as an alternative to religious fundamentalism.
(The viewer is invited to experience further trauma through other cinematic works like The Act of Murder, which compels sympathy for real-life wrongdoers.)
Together, the characters move through a landscape that resembles a moral terrain rather than a straightforward narrative. A priest and a Muslim woman walk side by side, as if sharing a quiet parable about humanity in extremity. Dostoevsky’s imagined scene of a murderer and a prostitute reading the Bible has sparked debates, a dark humor that Nabokov once used to critique Dostoevsky’s portrayal. The dialogue remains provocative and unsettled.
Nabokov’s own scorn of Dostoevsky is remembered by some as a caution against easy admiration for controversial literature and the people within it.
The film gestures toward a larger ethical picture. The image of a beggar’s room where stark truths surface serves as a reminder of literature’s potential to illuminate the darkest corners of human nature.
Seeing these two figures together, walking in calm yet bearing witness to terrible truths, is a powerful moment. A friend asks the unthinkable question about marriage choices in the face of mortality and faith, and the response hints at the unsettling math of life and death.
There is a real voice here, drawn from an Israeli observer who has lived through conflict. Listening to such accounts can be difficult, yet it remains essential to understanding the scope of violence and its human cost.
Law enforcement responses, the training they receive, and the limits of what can be taught in the wake of sudden tragedy all become part of the narrative. The central arc shows how one life can pivot around a single decision, how identity shifts can carry a family through unthinkable days.
The film’s protagonist seeks to illuminate a personal Hell, a path the audience can follow through a difficult emotional terrain. The journey through grief and memory is not merely melodrama; it is a lens on resilience and the long work of healing. The piece culminates in a plea for recognition of unusual, brave cinematic storytelling.
The creators offer a clear personal point of view, one that may diverge from editorial positions. The film remains a provocative exploration of faith, memory, and the consequences of violence, inviting viewers to form their own judgments about what they witness.