Like most of America, you probably haven’t seen United 93. You’ve avoided it out of an understandable reluctance to relive the emotional trauma of September, 11. If so, here’s my advice to you: Go see this movie. Now. Drag every friend and relative you can coax, cajole, wheedle, or sweet-talk along with you.
I can guarantee that you will not “enjoy” United 93, you will not find it entertaining or diverting or any of the things we’ve come to expect (or settle for) in our summer movies. I am equally confident that this film will move you more deeply and profoundly than anything you’ve seen in years, that you will be riveted by the experience in a way that makes other films seem petty and insignificant.
The only movie I can think of remotely comparable in its visceral effect is Schindler’s List and that film had the cushion of historical perspective; we knew going in that the holocaust was over, the monsters who perpetrated it utterly defeated and long dead. Not knowing how Al Qaeda’s war on modernity will unfold, we must watch this film without the comfortable certainty of a forgone conclusion.
The story of the passengers of United flight 93 ( “The Flight That Fought Back”) is already becoming legendary and it’s one of this film’s genuine achievements that while it is deeply respectful it is never reverential. It never devolves into the trite hagiography that would dehumanize the men and women it depicts. We don’t get a neatly packaged “back story” for any of the characters, but we do get the impression that their lives extend beyond the boundaries of the film. We overhear snippits of conversations and phone calls, but we never even catch the names of the people. It is exactly like our typical experience of fellow passengers on a plane trip. We are not surrounded by heroic characters or saints but by ordinary, flesh-and-blood people just like us.
In fact, the film is full of real people. FAA operations manager Ben Silney plays himself and the crew of the plane are portrayed by actual United pilots and stewardesses. This is just one of the techniques writer/director Paul Greengass (The Bourne Supremacy) employs to give the film a sense of urgent, objective reality. The film is shot in a loose, hand-held style and edited as if from available footage rather than meticulously composed shots.
The opening of the film could almost be a documentary about an airport. We see the mundane details of flight preparation, and without the context we bring with us, these montages would seem unremarkable, even dull. Greengrass never plays the scenes for suspense; he just presents them and lets us generate the tension. When, for instance, we see the plane being fueled up for its cross-continental journey, we know that those thousands of gallons of jet fuel are potentially a gruesomely effective weapon. The film never comments on this; it simply shows it and moves on, forcing us to make that connection.
This narrative strategy of elliptical storytelling, while common in top television shows (from The Sopranos to The Wire to Battlestar Galactica) is rarely used in movies, where we are usually spoon-fed the story. In United 93, we are constantly piecing information together for ourselves which automatically makes the film more engaging. Moreover, the people in the movie spend most of their time desperately trying to piece together the conflicting and confusing information they’re getting. We the audience are always a step ahead of them and this generates enormous tension while simultaneously making us re-live the confusion of that day.
You can expect to feel every emotion you had that day during the film. When they show the second plane crashing into the second tower, you will feel just as nauseous as you did five years ago. But what the film gives us that we couldn’t have that day is the catharsis of clear, deliberate action. At one point, the FAA director yells at an air force officer, “I don’t want more updates, I want action!” But there’s nothing anyone on the ground can do. So when the passengers realize that they are on a suicide mission and that they must take action, we feel grateful relief even though we know the tragic outcome.
Perhaps the film relies too heavily on the audience to provide its context. It may be that this film will have little or no emotional resonance for anyone who doesn’t already remember the events it depicts. I just don’t know. But however well or poorly the film ages, it is, right now, as powerful an experience as one can have in the cinema.
Again, I simply urge you to see it. And not for any political or sociological reasons. See it because it is a great and powerful film.
United 93 (2006)
Grade: A
