UNITED 93

There’s been much talk about whether it’s too soon to make a film about 9/11. But to me, the question isn’t whether it’s too soon; the question is whether it’s really necessary. After all, the memories and images of that historic day are forever burned into our collective consciousness – images so compelling and so disturbing that no film representation could ever come close to their dramatic power. For the events of 9/11 were so enormous, so traumatic and so shocking, that they could not possibly be contained in a 24 hour period, let alone a two hour big screen drama, as 9/11 remains one of the longest days in modern history – a day whose true duration is untold months.

I know some people for whom 9/11 was no more significant than the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City during the mid 90’s. But for me, 9/11 represented a fundamental shift in our reality – a shift of cosmic proportions that sent shock waves throughout the world as Western civilization had its first real taste of the apocalypse, undergoing an eschatological rite of passage. In an instant, everything had changed as the psyche of the industrialized modern world underwent a major transformation. For we will never experience that kind of collective shock again, as we have seen the unimaginable, and so now anything is possible. In fact, the only thing that could have made 9/11 bigger is if it was extra-terrestrial spacecrafts that crashed into the twin towers. Because even after all this time, the events of that day were so staggering and so unthinkable that it’s still easier for my mind to believe that the World Trade Centre buildings never existed than to believe that people actually flew planes into them, causing them to collapse.

And true, there are many tragedies happening throughout the world everyday with much greater loss of life than those of 9/11. But few of these have the same kind of stunning, instantaneous, historical impact as 9/11. For no matter what you think about the foreign policies of the U.S., when there’s an attack of that nature on the most powerful country in the world, there are bound to be consequences of global proportions. Not to mention the fact that unprecedented evil always changes history. World War I was an unprecedented kind of conflict that forever changed the world. The Holocaust was an unprecedented kind of inhumanity that forever changed the world. And not that I’m comparing 9/11 to those infamous tragedies, but the coordinated attacks on the U.S. that day were an unprecedented kind of terrorism that forever changed the world.

So how could the real life drama and trauma of 9/11 ever translate to film in a way that does justice to the unbelievably dark power of that day? Well the executives at Universal have certainly tried and I have to say the result is quite powerful as United 93 is nothing less than a truly noble effort to tell the story of the one hijacked plane on 9/11 that did not hit its target, but crashed in a field just outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Based in large part on phone calls made from the doomed planed that morning, the film recreates the probable events on the air craft as the passengers struggled to regain control of the plane and avert tragedy.

First and foremost, United 93 is in no way exploitative, and except for the fact that it is a movie, there’s nothing remotely commercial about it. There are no big name actors and none of the glitz and glamour that we normally associate with big studio productions. In fact, all the actors in the feature are virtual unknowns and most of them look like everyday people, which only serves to add to the realism of the recreation. In addition, United 93 is tastefully done as the film handles the subject matter with great care and dignity, with no attempts to accentuate the drama with typical Hollywood tricks – tricks that would have undoubtedly cheapened the experience.

Paul Greengrass, the film’s director, wisely chose to employ a minimalist approach, using a documentary shooting style that is a great complement to the film’s content, giving the experience of United 93 an added sense of realism. What’s equally great about his approach is that Greengrass doesn’t identify anyone or give convoluted back-stories of the major players in the drama. Instead, he chooses to let the audience experience the characters as if we too were passengers on the plane that day – we become casual observers who get to know the characters only through glimpses of their mundane activities, conversations and interactions that comprise most of people’s lives. In truth, the film begins much like the actual morning of 9/11/01 itself – a routine day with no hint whatsoever of the unbelievable drama and carnage that lay ahead.

And once the drama begins to unfold, we experience what it would be like to be an ordinary person caught up in extraordinary circumstances, as we get a peek at ourselves in the various reactions of the passengers, making the experience of United 93 extremely visceral and powerful. And in some sense, the passengers of United 93 were worse off than the passengers on the other hijacked planes, because those on the other flights were probably not as aware of the inevitable outcome of their situation as the passengers on United 93 were – passengers who in a very short time had to come to terms with the strong probability of their impending death.

United 93 also gives us a lot of behind the scenes look at the operations of the air traffic controllers and the FAA that day. We see some of the mistakes that were made and we get a greater understanding of how truly unprepared they were for an event of this magnitude. Indeed, no one was remotely equipped to process the idea of a single hijacking, let alone multiple suicidal hijackings. In fact, there’s a point in the film where American Airlines Flight 11 disappears over New York City on their radar system. Shortly afterwards there are news reports of a plane crashing into the north tower of the World Trade Centre. However, the powers that be still can’t put two and two together as they continue to wonder what happened to Flight 11; demonstrating how the idea of a commercial air plane flying into a New York skyscraper was so completely beyond their ability to imagine or process – as it was for most of us.

Despite the artistic success and visceral power of United 93, I still have reservations about whether a narrative film about 9/11 is necessary at this point. Films about the holocaust are necessary because unfortunately there are some who are bent on denying it and because an event that unthinkable becomes harder to believe as time puts greater distance between it and us. I think a documentary film about 9/11 is more in order – one that pieces together all the facts and fills in all the information gaps that traditional media outlets have been unable to; one that clears up all the misinformation, untruths and myths that still surround the event to this day; and one that answers all the unanswered questions that many of us still have about the tragedy. Nevertheless, I have to say that United 93 is a powerful movie going experience, the best so far this year and one that should definitely not be missed.

On The Rickter-Scale United 93 rates an 8.5 out of 10.

THE RICKTER-SCALE:
10 (A+) – extraordinary, a masterpiece
9.5/9.0 (A) – exceptional, a milestone
8.5/8.0 (A-) – excellent, a classic
7.5/7.0 (B+) – very good, a near classic
6.5/6.0 (B) – good
5.5/5.0 (B-) – fair
4.5/4.0 (C+) – poor
3.5/3.0 (C) – very poor, a near disaster
2.5/2.0 (C-) – terrible, a total disaster
1.5/1.0 (D+) – torture, a catastrophe
0.5/0.0 (F) – abysmal, the end of film as an artform