This remarkable film gets its name, directly or indirectly, from the Trappist monk Thomas Merton.The Unspeakable, he wrote in 1962, “is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said; the void that gets into the public and official declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced, and makes them ring dead with the hollowness of the abyss.”
James W. Douglass borrowed the term for the title of his 2008 book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, about the assassination of President Kennedy. Everyone should read that book, and everyone should see this movie, for they are essentially about the same thing: the behind-the-scenes violent usurping of power by already powerful forces and the widespread self-silencing that takes place among millions of people who know perfectly well that they are living and perpetuating a lie. In the cases of Kennedy’s murder in November 1963 and the mass murders of September 2001, official commissions were set up to cover up what actually happened and divert public attention, in both cases with the silent compliance of the mass media.
When silent movies gave way to those with sound, around 1930, the new ones were called talkies. “The Unspeakable” is a talky playing in the land of the silent.
This 90-minute documentary directed by Dylan Avery is having its world premier this week on innumerable screens, none in movie theaters. It was released online in a country that has been largely silenced — so far — on the appalling facts of the mass murders on “9/11”; these facts differ from the mainstream mythology of what happened, so silence is called for.
“The Unspeakable” features 16 survivors of four individuals killed on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed. Three of the victims were working there; one was apparently taking a short cut through the lobby of the North Tower. In all, thousands were killed including hundreds of responders who died on that day or have died since from exposure to toxins in the rubble.
The crime was unspeakable, but survivors are speaking.
“Normally when you have a family member who has been murdered you call the police and the police do an investigation,” says Matt Campbell, whose younger brother Geoff was killed when the first Tower collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001. “I trust the authorities to be thorough and to be fair and to get to the truth, and you don’t have to go and petition.”
The petition he refers to is to a coroner’s court in the United Kingdom. It is an appeal, based on evidence obtained since the court’s initial decision. The family seeks a new investigation of Geoff’s death. For its first ruling, Matt Campbell estimates, the court had spent only a few minutes considering the cause.
In “The Unspeakable,” three Campbells speak: Maureen, Geoff’s mother; Matt; and his younger brother, Rob. In addition, Henry Young, a colleague of Geoff’s who had been in touch with him by email that morning (New York time), and Ian Henshall, a former journalist-turned-coffeehouse proprietor.
In all, the movie features 16 survivors of Geoffrey Campbell, Robert G. McIlvane, Jean C. DiPalma, and Francis A. “Frank” DiMartini, who all perished at the World Trade Center that day. Only eight of the 16 are directly related, by marriage or blood. The other eight are survivors in the sense of being colleagues, friends, or individuals who have paid close attention to the nature of the WTC building collapses and the coverup that has followed.
The official “9/11” mythology is (1) that the Twin Towers came down from a combination of the impact of two hijacked commercial airliners striking them; (2) that the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C., was struck by a third hijacked commercial airliner; (3) that a fourth hijacked commercial airliner crashed into a field in rural Shanksville, Pa., after passengers overcame hijackers intending to fly the craft into another target; and (4) a third WTC skyscraper, Building 7, caught fire from debris from the north Tower and collapsed because of fires that weakened key supporting beams
All 16 who speak in “The Unspeakable” are survivors in the sense that — as the French newspaper Le Monde put it in a headline on Sept. 12, 2001 — “We Are All Americans.” That makes everyone in the world survivors, whether we are “truthers” or not. Everyone should consider reading that page 1 story in the French daily or a translation (I haven’t yet) because history for everyone in the world has been affected, including for the roughly one-quarter of the U.S. population born since those terror attacks.
The faces and voices of at least seven of those who speak in the film will be familiar to some who have seen other documentaries challenging the official “9/11” narrative. One in particular, the dogged Bob McIlvaine, may have been overexposed.
What is absent in this film is one of the best things about it: scenes of the three WTC skyscrapers coming down, post-impact scenes outside the Pentagon, the gouged field in Pennsylvania. People are sick and tired of seeing them. More important, they are about the past. “The Unspeakable” is about the future, the continuing quest for truth and justice.
“The Unspeakable” opens with views of the ironically dubbed “Freedom Tower,” an apparent steel shaft of 94 stories that opened as One World Trade Center in 2015 after eight years of construction. It closes with architect Tony Szamboti saying why he has focused on 9/11 matters: “It’s the right thing to do.”
In all, this is a most moving and vital and important and exceptional movie. I hope to have more to say about it, and to correct any incorrect details above, but this is enough for now.Click HERE to see it.
— Mark Channing Miller