Few events have been dissected, debated and documented quite like 9/11.
Twenty-five years later, it remains tied to arguments about the foreign policy of the United States of America, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, surveillance and security, Islamophobia, immigration and, inevitably, the conspiracy theories that have emerged.
Then there are the images. The planes hitting the towers, the smoke rising over Manhattan, people fleeing through the streets - photographs and footage that have been replayed so often they have become almost inseparable from how we remember the day.
Which makes watching yet another documentary about 9/11 a tricky proposition. What is left to say about an event that has already been examined from almost every conceivable angle?
The planes. The towers. The smoke. People running through the streets. The photographs that have been reproduced so many times that they almost feel like something from another lifetime, despite the fact that 9/11 happened only 25 years ago.
So, when a new documentary about one of the most documented events in modern history appears, the immediate question is: what else can possibly be said?
“Turning Point: Generation 9/11”, now streaming on Netflix, does not pretend that it has discovered a missing piece of the puzzle. Nor does it need to.
Instead, the 97-minute documentary is interested in the enormous shadow cast by September 11 and what that shadow has looked like for the generation that grew up beneath it.
There is the generation that remembers 9/11, the generation that was too young to understand it and the generation that was not even born when it happened. Yet all three have lived with some version of its aftermath.
The documentary moves through the invasion of Afghanistan, the War on Terror, the expansion of American security measures, the treatment of Muslim and immigrant communities and the political divisions that followed.
It also returns to Afghanistan and the 2021 US withdrawal, giving space to people whose lives were shaped by America's two-decade military presence there.
It is the personal accounts that prevent the film from becoming another chronological retelling of events.
People who lost parents in the attacks speak about growing up with an absence that began on a day they did not necessarily understand at the time.
Young Afghans describe a country shaped by a war they had little control over, while former US Marines reflect on a conflict that became part of their own lives.
The result is less about explaining what happened on September 11 and more about examining what we did with what happened.
There is very little mystery left about the basic facts of the attacks.
We know what happened, who carried them out and what followed.
Twenty-five years of investigations, books, films, documentaries and public debate have ensured that few people are going to press play on “Turning Point: Generation 9/11” expecting a history lesson that suddenly rewrites everything we know.
The documentary's more interesting territory lies in the consequences.
The suspicion that entered public life. The security measures that became normal. The hostility faced by Muslim Americans.
The wars that continued long after the original shock had faded. The conspiracy theories that grew alongside public distrust. The misinformation culture that now lives comfortably on our phones.
The film makes the connection between the conspiracy theories that emerged after 9/11 and the broader distrust and misinformation that define much of today's online world.
That feels particularly relevant when so much of what we consume is filtered through algorithms, anonymous accounts and people shouting with great confidence into the void.
There is an irony in all of this.
9/11 is perhaps one of the most photographed and filmed events in history, yet a quarter of a century later we are still arguing about what it meant.
“Turning Point: Generation 9/11” understands that photographs and footage can preserve an event without necessarily explaining it.
The image of a collapsing tower tells us what happened. It does not tell us what happened next, or what that meant to the people who lived through the consequences.
That is where this documentary earns its place among the many films that have already examined September 11. It is not trying to be the final word. Frankly, there probably cannot be one.
Instead, it gives us another lens through which to consider an event that has shaped foreign policy, family histories, communities and political identities for a quarter of a century.
And perhaps that is the strange thing about 9/11. We have spent 25 years trying to understand a day that lasted only a few hours.
We have watched the footage, read the reports, argued over the politics and followed the conspiracy theories. We know the photographs by heart.
The significance of 9/11 cannot be contained in the images of that day. Its impact unfolded over the years that followed and reached well beyond the United States.
The attacks prompted the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and a wider “War on Terror”, while security and surveillance measures were expanded and Muslim communities faced increased suspicion and hostility. The consequences were felt internationally, influencing foreign policy, immigration, travel and how governments approached terrorism and national security.
For those who experienced 9/11 first-hand, the day became a defining memory.
For people elsewhere in the world, 9/11 changed the way countries approached security, travel and terrorism, while the wars that followed affected communities far removed from the streets of New York.
That is what makes the documentary’s generational focus more interesting. Twenty-five years later, 9/11 is not simply something remembered by the people who witnessed it.
Its consequences have been inherited by people who were children at the time, people who were born afterwards and people living thousands of kilometres away who never saw the towers fall but grew up in the world that followed.
Rating: ★★★☆☆: It is not a definitive account of 9/11, but it offers a worthwhile look at the generation shaped by its aftermath. Twenty-five years on, there are still questions we cannot answer and truths we may never fully know a reminder that, sometimes, we simply have to accept that we will not know it all.
bernelee.vollmer@nationalmg.co.za