United 93

(Further comments about United 93 have been added.)

A reader writes:

I just returned from watching the new movie “United 93.” It is the most intense movie I have ever seen.

What makes it so intense is knowing that what you are watching actually happened. There is little or no score, no opening graphics other than the title. No film-school effects or flourishes. The film is plain and unadorned and the sense of reality is so vivid that in the final minutes of the film as the passengers attack and conquer their enemies, I literally had to sit up on the front edge of my seat. I was so completely involved in urging them on to action that my hands were shaking as I held the armrests.

The final moments, as the plane tilts down towards the ground and the green fields race up towards the viewer, are almost spiritual…despite the screams and fighting, a calm feeling of the end coming now and nothing to be done about it…and then silent blackness unlike I’ve experienced at a movie before. The entire theater was silent—no one moved a muscle or made a sound. The relief when the credits finally started to roll was palpable.

I can’t say that I enjoyed the ordeal exactly, but I am thankful that someone finally made a movie to show what those heroic Americans did that day. Such heroism! It gives me hope knowing that within us as a people still remains that instinct for self-preservation that will rouse us to do what is needed.

Just felt like sharing those impressions with someone who is on the same wavelength with regard to our nation’s interests.

-Mark J.

Mark P. writes:

I did see the movie as well and I thought it was excellent. A truly naked and unvarnished portrayal of what happened that day and an excellent rebuke of all our naysayers out there.

I am, however, beyond any feeling on this matter. I care nothing for emotion-laden diatribe. I know what the problem is and I know how it must be solved.

I know what must be done…

And I am still waiting….

Carl Simpson writes:

I saw it today. Despite Greengrass’ personal liberalism—parroting all the usual PC nonsense about such evil being the responsibility of a few extremists who’ve hijacked Islam (instead of the truthful assertion that they in fact heeded Islam in their actions)—his prejudices were quite absent from the movie. I was actively looking for them, too.

It was extremely well done—one of most intense films I’ve seen. It made no comment about the hijackers or their motives at all, nor did it hide or obfuscate the fact that they were all Muslims and aliens in America. The film simply portrayed their disciplined evil carried out as soldiers of the jihad, along with the very typical reactions of the passengers, the military, and the government. There is no question of the real heroism of those who fought them, either. Greengrass has given us one of those extremely rare instances of dispassionate observation that allows the viewer to come to his own conclusions. He should be praised for that, liberal or not.

Carl Simpson continues:

Is “United 93” a metaphor for our civilization itself?

The disturbing images from earlier continue to haunt me. The passengers and crew were ordinary Americans you could find in any city in the country. Largely white, with a few blacks and Asians added in. There were a couple of Euros, one of whom betrayed the intentions of Beamer and the others to recapture the plane because of his liberal belief that the hijackers are reasonable people who can be negotiated with.

Government was largely clueless and incompetent, despite the heroic efforts among some of the rank-and-file workers and middle-management (several of whom played themselves in the film). Only a minority of the hostages attempted to fight the jihadis and recapture the plane, of course. Some passengers called their loved ones, only to get an answering machine, for last goodbye. They knew their time was short, as news about the WTC attacks was widely disseminated. Even so the shock and sheer panic froze many. What was the ending? Blackness. It’s a profoundly disturbing film, when viewed this way. Even so, we need to see ourselves as we really are. For me, it just makes everything you write about at VFR all the more urgent.

Sorry for such dark late-night ruminations, but this film was even more intense than “The Passion of the Christ.” Greengrass masterfully built his film into an incredible, almost unbearable crescendo, whose end is a blank screen in black.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 28, 2006 03:52 PM | Send