September 11, 2010: United 93
I must admit that the significance of the events of September 11, 2001 didn’t sink in with me immediately. Of course, we all know now that the brazen assault on complacent and ignorant westerners, on North Americans’ own hallowed ground, would significantly though not fundamentally change the way privileged lives are lived, and not quite in the ways we might have imagined. The charade of increased security at airports has touched many people, and the continued impact of increases in military spending in Afghanistan and Iraq has hobbled the financial capabilities of a number of countries. Nearly a decade later, not a day goes by without a mention of that day in relation to current events.
What can be forgotten after so many years is the uncertainty, fear and confusion during that fateful day itself, and Paul Greengrass’ film United 93 (2006) does a very effective job of providing that reminder, which is why I selected it for viewing on this 9th anniversary.
World War II is the go-to war for recalling absolute earth-jarring uncertainty and despair. One of the things I regret that I can’t perceive about that war, and which I speak about at times with my grandmother, is the difference between my perspective knowing that the war ran from 1939-1945, and her perspective living in London and suffering bombing raids for years with no end in sight. She didn’t get to think “this sucks, but it’s 1944 so at least it will be over by next year”. I can’t and won’t attempt to liken the events of 9/11 to WWII, but I think it helps me to get closer to understanding the sentiment. We know now that only four planes were hijacked that day, and the World Trade Center twin towers were lost but at least the two other planes didn’t quite make it to their targets, and there haven’t been any follow-up attacks on that scale. But on the day itself, it was clear that a disaster was unfolding and the size of it was completely unknown.
In United 93, the story is about the hijacked plane which was fated to crash land in Pennsylvania, as a result of fighting on the plane once the brave passengers, upon hearing of the day’s events and realizing that they weren’t going to emerge from this hijacking safely, tried to take matters into their own hands. The drama aboard the plane is intercut with the unfolding events of the day, focusing on the Federal Aviation Administration command centre, a military command centre, and various air traffic control towers in the eastern US. We see the beginnings of a normal day, with workers doing their jobs and making sure the cogs of the wheels of society turn smoothly. When things start to go amiss, the correct lines of authority are activated according to protocol and people focus on the problem and try to figure out what’s happening. Then things spin out of control and nobody knows what to do, and that’s where we realize that no set of pre-set procedures can effectively deal with such a significant disaster. Once a couple of planes are confirmed to be hijacked, several more suddenly seem to be behaving in the same way, as a microscope is taken to the actions of the thousands of pilots in the air over North America at the time. It is unknown whether it’s two planes or a hundred planes which might go amiss. Once a plane crashes into the first tower, people are still reluctant to accept that things are out of control, as reports immediately surfaced about it being a small plane and the FAA and military staff had no better information than CNN. Once the second tower was hit, it was clearly deliberate and drastic action needed to be taken, yet the President still could not be reached, nor could the Vice-president, and the legendary US military was still struggling to get clearance to put two or three planes over New York and Washington. At this point, how many more planes were going to disappear? Was this to be a daily occurrence until some demand was met? Would other civilian transport systems or other iconic buildings be attacked? I was watching TV for the bulk of that day, and nobody had any answers to these questions. All they could do was to talk about them.
United 93 wisely includes footage from TV news networks in order to illustrate the above-mentioned role reversal common in such situations, where the military tunes in the news to find out what’s going on rather than being the ones giving the briefings to the networks. This illustrates the reality of emergencies where speculation about possibilities spreads like wildfire and before long turns out to be the story everyone is reporting. In what I think is the most poignant scene in the film, a bunch of guys in a control tower in the New York area (I think it had to be LaGuardia based on what they were able to see) are poring over their radar screens trying to figure out where a particular plane has gone, when one finally sees it with his own eyes through the huge panoramic windows and points it out and they all proceed to watch, helpless, as it crashes into the second tower.
Up on United’s flight 93, brief sketches of each inhabitant of the plane are presented, scattered through their mornings and their time in the airport and as they board the plane and begin their flight. We see well-fed mousy men shed their day-to-day personas when everyone’s lives are on the line and they need to plan a coordinated attack on their captors and risk injury to do so. Flight attendants stick to their “don’t worry, we’ll be landing soon” stories for as long as they can, until they gratefully begin to act human again and help to plan the counter-attack to regain control of their plane. I think it’s a good move to structure the narrative of the film around this flight, because the whole story can be told in all its gritty detail, but there’s an intimate human element to it as well. By using mostly unknown actors, there is also no single person acting as a focal point, allowing the viewer to appreciate the dynamic of the group as a random sampling of society, which is how life actually is. Director Paul Greengrass was the man behind the second and third Jason Bourne films (The Bourne Supremacy from 2004 and The Bourne Ultimatum from 2007), so he knows how to put together a tense action scene and there are some in this film, but here he knows when to keep things low-key. United 93 is as realistic a film as you’re going to see about 9/11, and a worthwhile reminder of the uncertainty of that day.
Sensitive perspective on harrowing, world-changing events.
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