Make no mistake, those who are unwilling to confront the past will be unable to understand the present and unfit to face the future. I read the above quote from Bernard Lewis in an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal over lunch today. I thought it perfectly complimented the movie “United 93” even though the article was not about the movie.
I had been steeling myself to see this movie for a few days. I wanted to see it the first weekend because the producers of it had promised to donate 10% of the opening week box office receipts to a U-93 Memorial. Still, I didn’t relish the idea of what I was about to see. I mean, we all know how this one ends, right? It’s kind of like “The Passion of the Christ” from a few years back, which I never saw. Just because a movie can be universally agreed to be “worth seeing” doesn’t mean that I am especially eager to see it. Still, I wanted to see U-93, so in I went.
I saw it. I sat for the entire 2 hours plus of it, kneaded my hands, clenched my jaw and muttered “oh my God” I don’t know how many times. I cried too—a little—at the end. I walked out feeling like I had been kicked in the gut. I was so shaken that I had to go to a bookstore in the mall and just kind of sit there and collect my thoughts afterward.
I am not going to pronounce this a great movie or anything like that, because I think to do so would miss the point. U-93 isn’t a typical “movie” in any sense of the word, anyway. There’s no story arc, no dramatic ending, no satisfying conclusion. U-93 is simply the experience of being a fly on the wall at the FAA as they numbly try to cope with a situation that none of them could have even envisioned much less trained for. Or at the NORAD command center as they desperately sought fighters they could scramble over New York and Washington only to have the only ones within 400 miles report that they were flying unarmed. But of course, as bad as all that is (and believe me, it IS, especially when you get to see that the FAA people at JFK had an unobstructed view of the second plane going into the World Trade Center) it’s nothing compared to the shattering experience of being right there in the plane with the 40 other passengers on United flight 93 in the second half of the movie. In this sense, U-93 is more of a “dramatic documentary” that gives the viewer an unflinching look at some incredibly painful recent history.
Those who are unwilling to confront the past….This movie fearlessly confronts the past and for that, it’s about as enjoyable as sitting through a root canal.
I have really nothing to criticize because, again, U-93 feels more like history than it does a movie. I loved the fact that there are no recognizable movie stars in this movie. In fact, the FAA director as well as the NORAD commanding officer both played themselves in the movie. I loved how everything was put forth so matter-of-factly. Sure the terrorists are evil, we know that, but they were human beings, not demons. Portraying them as shifty-eyed dime-store villains, a-la some bad Chuck Norris movie, would have been like penciling a beard on the Mona Lisa. I liked how the movie began with the murmured prayers of the hijackers in their motel room. I liked how the actor who portrayed Ziad Jarrah almost seemed to be losing his nerve before he gave the signal for his team to begin their assault on the cockpit. I also like how the movie didn’t try to do anything to romanticize them either. I was glad to have no backstory shoved down my throat, a-la “Syriana” or “Fahrenheit 9/11,” that would have tried to make me understand the terrorists’ motives for doing what they did, even if I didn’t approve of it. I know better than most why they did what they did and I favor waging war in the Middle East until every single one of those al-Qaeda bastards is dead because of it.
I liked how the main characters are portrayed. I liked how very
ordinary they all were. To have Todd Beamer’s character played by Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise and have the camera lavishing attention on their face would have cheapened the movie, and it would have been distracting. This isn’t an action movie after all with the bad guys going down in a satisfying hail of bullets from Chuck Norris’ Uzi. U-93 is history, about ordinary people overcoming paralyzing fear in the face of death to rise up, throw themselves against their killers and save countless others their same fate.
In this ridiculously polarized country we live in, when half the country thinks George Bush is more dangerous than Osama bin Laden, “United 93” isn’t easy to watch, nor is it especially pleasant. But it is necessary. It is TIME for this movie. “United 93” is a straightforward, unblinking look at one of the worst days of our nation’s history and shows how the most ordinary of us have it in ourselves to be heroes. For that, and many other things about this remarkable movie, I am thankful.
