Through watching this film, I re-lived the moments I saw the Boston Bombing on T.V. and all the panic and hysteria it drove. I remember seeing interviews of people with amputated legs, devastated that unknowingly their lives had changed forever. Every time I witness a terrorist attack and even throughout this film, it’s always challenging for me to fathom how these are real people, and how these people just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. This reality scares me because truth to be told, my family and I were supposed to be at that Boston Marathon, and something could have happened to us, however last minute my parents opted out. This makes me wonder how many times, just by change and luck, I have been saved and brought away from dangerous situations and while that makes me feel safe, it also makes me realize that my feelings towards safety are temporary. Through any surprise murder or bomb threat, I am always interested in knowing what lead the person up to doing these horrible things, and how their minds could have tricked them into believing that their actions were acceptable. In that sense, I would have liked the movie to have focused more on the psychological mentalities between the brothers, which lead to them capable of detonating these bombs.
This film also made me reflect on the idea that you may now know the actions of the people closest to you. It is hard to imagine Tamaran’s wife condoning the activities that he as a part of, and thus it must have been so scary and unimaginable for her to learn what her husband has been up to. In that regard, it also worried me that I could be associated with people who are potentially very dangerous and that you don’t always know the true colors of all people you meet. Although this is a very paranoid statement, situations like these make me less likely to trust some people completely and maintain my distance. I wonder if there were any actions of deceit that the wife and friends could have caught on earlier, and if these actions could be given more notice, so more people could identify idiosyncratic behavior and ponder upon the relevance of this behavior. However, we then come to the issue of correlation versus causation which makes it more challenging to assume people’s behavior indicates deception and dangerous activity.
It is always amazing to me how important the entire operation is to carrying out a successful terrorist attack. I remember the scene in the movie when the two college roommates were arrested for not reporting the crimes of the terrorists. It is sad to think that some people could put a stop to things but do not.
One thing to note perhaps is that Tsarnaev’s friends from college did in fact catch on to his odd behavior, insofar as they found his bomb making material. And then when Tsarnaev’s name showed up on the news, they didn’t bother to react. I’m not sure this behavior would be out of the ordinary for younger people. It’s hard to act against people you know, even if that’s the right thing to do. Perhaps this also applies to most people, or is you concern different than this?
“It’s always challenging for me to fathom how these are real people, and how these people just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I completely agree with this point—the world is so large that often it can be difficult to conceptualize all the tragedies occurring on other corners of the globe. It reminds me of the quote, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” It’s not until something occurs close to home that the gravity of these tragedies really begins to sink in. My hometown is right next to Sandy Hook—the kindergarteners, after their school was closed down, started attending the same elementary school I had only a few years prior. I can still vividly remember the feeling of our classroom sitting in lockdown as the news slowly started rolling in while the event was happening. I will never forget seeing the death counter slowly increase with each time the local newscaster returned to the story. Whenever I return to that moment, it makes me wonder if there is some way for us to foster that same sense of empathy for these tragedies occurring abroad. Perhaps humans, as a species, would be more united if we could find a way to share our emotions more deeply.