United 93

Went to see United 93 on Sunday night. It was awful, and I simply cannot imagine why it has had such rave reviews. Although the (British) director deserves credit for deviating from some Hollywood stereotypes (eg 1 – not including a nauseating and overly sentimental probe into the private lives of each of the passengers; eg 2 – not presenting good and evil as polar opposites, but rather problematising the relationship between the two [eg by humanising the terrorists], although perhaps not enough), this film was yet another gratuitous insight into American suffering and American bravery.

I thought that the (factually unfounded, apparently) portrayal of the German passenger as a pacifist who favoured negotiation over revolt was a gesture of hollow liberalism, almost as though the director was consciously trying to subvert Hollywood conventions of good and bad.

One mildly interesting point in an otherwise quite frankly boring film (throughout much of which I admittedly had my eyes shut, as I hate the site of blood and knives), was the shocking absence of a functional system of communication on the ground, which, the meticulously-researched film implies, might have prevented the hijacking of AA93.

Ultimately, though, there is no discernable message to the film. It contributes nothing to our understanding of events, beyond that which has already been reported. Unfortunately also the effects of the more commendable aspects of the film were lessened by the following comments made by the director on the film’s website:

1. “United 93… dramatizes and symbolizes everything that we face today.” Um, how exactly? Unless he’s saying that we are all touched by war and terror – it’s perpetrated by those among us; it’s on a United Airlines flight; on the London Underground, etc. To which my response is, yes, it is in those places, but war and terror are also committed at the bloodied hands of Bush and Blair – if you really want to say something of value, Paul Greengrass, why don’t you teach us something about that?

2. “[9/11 was] a day that changed our lives forever.” A very dramatic statement, designed for powerful impact, but again, you can’t make this sort of assertion without qualifying it. It was not the events of 9/11 on their own that “changed our lives forever” (which I think is overstating it somewhat anyway), but our collective realisation of what our world has become – and the part we have played in this – that so greatly impacted on us. 9/11 has to be looked at in this context, and alongside many other issues about fundamentalism in general and British and American foreign policy.

LOTS more to say about all of this. Another time…