Really Surprised!

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

"From One Second to the Next", by the renowned documentarian Werner Herzog, is a powerful short on the most tragic consequences resulting in people texting while driving. Herzog takes the subject that while serious may appear too general or simplistic a topic, and makes it a really personal, moving experience, showing both side of several very sad incidents. The interviews of both loved ones of victims, and of those whose texting caused tragedies (those who were willing to speak) are very powerful and moving.Beyond all this is a dire warning to anyone who has this reckless habit to get away with it right away, and those haven't garnered it to make sure they don't start. No words which you can wait to say later—it can only take one word, an abbreviation of a few letters—can ever be worth the needless taking of a human life.

This is a 2013 documentary short film by German director Werner Herzog. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, he actually made a couple short films, so this was a bit of back to the roots for him now at the age of 70. This film is about car accident, more specifically those who happen because one of the victims is on the phone texting. We hear a handful stories, each roughly seven minutes by relatives of dead people, people who got severely injured and their family, but also by people who texted during driving and caused a car crash this way. No matter which side you're on, the one texting or an innocent victim, this will crucially change your life for the worse. You will die. You will have severe injuries. Or you will just have to live with the guilt, let alone the legal consequences you are about to face. These are all very sad examples of what could happen. The saddest in my opinion was the one with the woman who got severely injured and her dog got killed. She lived, but she will be disabled for the rest of her life and the girl who is responsibly got away with hardly no punishment at all. She did not appear in front of a camera because her lawyer instructed her that way, but also she will have to live with the guilt. I don't know how famous this documentary would be without its director and I don't think there is a real Herzog touch of it like it is the case for most of the other films he made, but the message stays the same: Do not text and drive or you could lose all you have.

This relatively short film is about the consequences of texting and driving and a warning for viewers to not to do it. Herzog has considerable skill in interviewing and assembling the interviews in order to make a point or create a narrative. We can see his artistry here, but we're left wondering: what is it all about, really? Both victims and perpetrators of texting and driving accidents are interviewed. Of course it's what you'd expect: descriptions of the carnage, devastated families and offenders who have to live with guilt for the rest of their lives. These are the kind of scenes that are played out in any fatal accident, no matter what the cause. And except for the particular reason for driver distraction, in this case texting, they are generic to all bad accidents. This exercise in persuasion is powerful, moving, and pointless. Why? Because anyone dumb enough to text and drive wouldn't be watching a Werner Herzog film to get pointers on driver ed. Telling a person not to text and drive is like telling him not to stick his hand in a wood chipper while it's running. You don't warn people like that about the dangers of doing something anyone with half a brain would know from the start not to do, you don't let them drive in the first place.

The moment I read about this new documentary short from Werner Herzog, I thought, "A public service announcement video to warn people to never text while driving? Really?" It seems like a small hair ball of a problem that should already be common sense. Having watched the short, I realized that's precisely the problem, that texting while driving seems like a such a minor hiccup. It is not.The half-hour short covers the story of four accidents that have caused by texting while driving. One case has a child that is paralyzed for life and is currently on life support, caused by an accident from a teenage girl who was distracted from texting. There were no skid marks. She never saw him. Another case involves a man who killed two Amish children. The driver is now perpetually left to questioning himself what was so important about his text that couldn't wait. The other two cases was a family dealing with the monstrous medical bills from her mother's accident and a family losing her father. What really struck me was the last man who caused the accident, who wasn't able to recall the text message he sent after the accident happened. He couldn't remember why it was important.Herzog brings his brand of deep introspectiveness to the short, adding the much-needed seriousness this topic deserves. As the title suggests, life is connected by each second. It's in- between each seconds we must throw caution, because everything can change within a second. The most disturbing part for me was, my initial reaction was exactly the type of behavior this short was trying to warn against. It is not a hairball. It is not something to handle. Reading a text is not better than sending a text. There are human lives at stake. Do not text and drive. You just do not do it.Some statistics I found on texting while driving:Texting while driving causes 1,600,000 accidents per year.The minimal amount of time needed for a text is 5 seconds. If you are traveling at 88.5 km/hour (55 miles/hour), that would cover an entire football field without any attention paid to the road.As of 2011, at least 23% auto collisions have involved cell phones. That amounts to 1.3 million car crashes.1 out of 5 drivers of all ages confess to surfing on the web while driving.Text messaging is the longest eye-off-the-road time out of all the distracted driving activities. An accident is 23 times more likely to happen if you are text messaging.The documentary can be viewed on Youtube. The slogan to the AT&T campaign is "It can wait."For more reviews, please visit my film blog at http://hkauteur.wordpress.com/