United 93
I saw this film today and as you may have read, it's very intense and realistic. I couldn't discern a political slant, which was refreshing; if there's a 'theme' (other than being a retelling of a story most are familiar with), it's that we were all unprepared together. Nobody in the film is portrayed as a buffoon. All the air-traffic controllers, pilots, stewardesses, military people are hard-working, doing the best they can to deal with something for which there seems to have been very little contingency planning for.
Up until the end of the film, the passengers themselves are almost a sidebar to the story. Most of the action takes place on the ground, as the horrific events of the day and their implications gradually become apparent to all those trying to manage the crisis. Trying to figure out what's happening and what to do, trying to discern good information from bad... I distinctly remember following the news that day and hearing rumors about 12 planes unaccounted for and possibly hijacked. All of it seems so clear in retrospect but on that awful day, it was anything but.
In the early part of the film, hardly anyone seems willing to even believe a single hijacking, much less four, had taken place. It had been over ten years since the last one. Much of the early going has to do with air-traffic controllers routinely directing flights, doing their jobs, which even under the most ordinary circumstances appear incredibly complicated. Something like 4200 passenger flights are in the air at any given moment in the US.
The passengers of United 93 are a very ordinary, anonymous group and no attempt is made, as in 'Airport' type films, to flesh out their characters or even identify them by name. They're old and young, skinny and fat, some using laptops and others content to just sit... a group like we've all seen dozens of times when we've flown.
I won't go into more detail about the end, though we all know how it ultimately ends, other than to say from this retelling, the passengers very nearly succeeded in retaking the plane. Whether they would have survived past that is a matter of conjecture. But they did succeed in a more important way. On that confused and confounding day, they joined the police and firefighters and rescue workers in New York and Washington as the real heroes of the moment. To this day, I think most people are almost in awe of their spontaneous bravery and resourcefulness, and we all wonder whether we would have done the same in their places.
When the film ended, you could have heard a pin drop in the theater. I've never sat in a movie theater that quiet before.
Up until the end of the film, the passengers themselves are almost a sidebar to the story. Most of the action takes place on the ground, as the horrific events of the day and their implications gradually become apparent to all those trying to manage the crisis. Trying to figure out what's happening and what to do, trying to discern good information from bad... I distinctly remember following the news that day and hearing rumors about 12 planes unaccounted for and possibly hijacked. All of it seems so clear in retrospect but on that awful day, it was anything but.
In the early part of the film, hardly anyone seems willing to even believe a single hijacking, much less four, had taken place. It had been over ten years since the last one. Much of the early going has to do with air-traffic controllers routinely directing flights, doing their jobs, which even under the most ordinary circumstances appear incredibly complicated. Something like 4200 passenger flights are in the air at any given moment in the US.
The passengers of United 93 are a very ordinary, anonymous group and no attempt is made, as in 'Airport' type films, to flesh out their characters or even identify them by name. They're old and young, skinny and fat, some using laptops and others content to just sit... a group like we've all seen dozens of times when we've flown.
I won't go into more detail about the end, though we all know how it ultimately ends, other than to say from this retelling, the passengers very nearly succeeded in retaking the plane. Whether they would have survived past that is a matter of conjecture. But they did succeed in a more important way. On that confused and confounding day, they joined the police and firefighters and rescue workers in New York and Washington as the real heroes of the moment. To this day, I think most people are almost in awe of their spontaneous bravery and resourcefulness, and we all wonder whether we would have done the same in their places.
When the film ended, you could have heard a pin drop in the theater. I've never sat in a movie theater that quiet before.
posted by gbj at 3:12 PM
3 Comments:
I am hesitating to go see it because I know the emotion will be so intense. I am writing without contractions because this @#$%$@ computer has decided to go into search mode every time I hit an apostrophe. It gives a weird stilted tone to my writing. Damn.
But anyway, I have always felt very proud of the Americans on Flight 93 and I think their actions showed what the terrorists were too evil and stupid to understand: Americans cannot be intimidated. The first planes were taken by surprise and undoubtedly thought they were isolated cases of hijacking; but those on 93 had time to find out what was happening and they stopped it. Thinking of them gave me the courage to get on a plane about month later when my standard-issue fear of flying was really compounded by those events.
I was on a message board the other day and this movie came up, and I was amazed at the number of people who said they wouldn't go see it because it was too upsetting, too real, too soon...
I thought, it's not too soon, if anything, it might be too late! People watch all kinds of graphic stuff and that's fine apparently, but this just seems to cut too close to the bone.
It tells me that people still differentiate between fiction and fact... and fact, especially in this case, is much harder to deal with. It was for me too. I told everyone I was going to see it, and then I almost backed out. The early parts of the movie are interesting and compelling but when you get to the end, it's almost like someone grabs hold around your heart. You don't want to watch and yet you can't look away. It's one of those things that you come away from and think and think and think...
That's a really interesting point, about people knowing what they can dismiss as fiction and what they can't. 9/11 was hard enough to deal with at the time and I can understand people being reluctant to reawaken those feelings. I felt very depressed for several days and I can remember thinking that if it didn't lift soon, I was going to hie me to the headshrinker's office.
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