United 98
At 5.30 in the morning on September 11th 2001, I climbed down the hill from my place in San Francisco and caught the bus to go to the gym. As we went through the Castro, some old guy got on the bus - dishevelled, unwashed and wild eyed. He was talking about someone flying a plane into a building in New York. I settled back into my public transport nap until we got to 16th St where I got off and walked to the gym.
When I arrived everyone was clustered around the TV's near the cardio equipment. A plane, probably an Air American flight, had crashed into one of the World Trade Centre towers, I was just getting my head around what I was seeing when the second plane came in.
I watched it live.
Just about everyone has a story about where they were on September 11th. Its a seminal moment in our history and while certainly not the biggest disaster in this new century, its received the most media attention. Now a new movie will give it some more attention and this one will, I think, bring with it a certain amount of catharsis.
The film is shown in nearly real time and chronicles a hypothetical reconstruction of what happened on September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked on the day and while three of them reached their targets in New York and Washington, one did not. "United 93" is the story of the fourth which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.
The film is unsettling from the beginning. You know that everyone on the plane is going to die, and I will admit that there were a few moments in the first 15 minutes when I questioned if I was going to sit through it. I stayed and I am glad I did.
Shot with grainy stock using a handheld, Cinéma vérité /documentary style the film is intimate, gripping and realistic. The actors are normal looking people and behave in normal ways, there are no heroics and no hero's. It took me a while to spot an actor I recognised and more than once I wondered if they had used non actors for the piece - the story itself takes center stage and is the star of the film.
I found the style of the film to be very non standard. There was no single view point, with story parts being told by all of the players on and off the flight. Sitting there I felt the best way to describe it was as a "tapestry", the international poster really does give an excellent feel for what I mean. The story rest solely in the cabin of United 93, it covers evens in FAA control centres and the NORAD military command to give a very well rounded view of events.
There is some predictable All American RaRa, but surprisingly not as much as I expected. The passengers are hysterical, frightened and very human. The strongest theme of American Heroism is provided as a counterpoint with the German passenger, Christian Adams, being portrayed as weak and trying to appease the hijackers. A not very subtle dig at the "weak" Europeans and their stance on Iraq and the 'War on Terror". Understandably Christian Adams widow, Silke, apparently refused to be involved in the film.
In contrast I am personally very pleased to see that the gay man on the flight, Mark Bingham†, is not only at the centre of the action, but is also played by the totally hot Cheyenne Jackson . While it is a pity they do not make a it known he is gay, he at no point cries like a bitch or offers fashion advice - I am going to call this a marginal win.
Unexpectedly I walked away with a surprising amount of sympathy for the hijacker pilot, Ziad Jarrah. A message that I think was important for the film, making it stronger and more human. It is easy to fall back on demonising the terrorists, to deal with them simply as an evil other, but I suspect that approach is not going to give us a resolution to the escalating conflict that doesn't involve genocide. While not condoning their action, the film does show, particularly Ziad, to have a great deal of humanity.
All up I think this film is a must see. It will bring up things you had put aside, but film making is also about helping us deal with our pain. I think this movie does exactly that.
†Mark Bingham is my only one degree of seperation with 911. I didn't know him well, just chatting pals at the gym, but I knew him and his presence was missed in San Francisco. That he was gay is almost a non issue - almost. His bravery has been documented from the phone calls from United 93 and verified by the people who knew him. He did what he had to for the people on the plane with him and the people on the ground, even knowing that he was unlikely to survive. And all this for a country who does not recognise his orientation enough to allow brave men like him to be public about their sexuality and serve the military.
Another example of a gay man turning the other cheek and just getting on with life in a way that the moral scolds simply cannot match.
Mark was a good man, and the world is a lesser place with out him in it.
