Opinion - News Analysis   

Looking back at 9/11 unsentimentally

Hasan Suroor

WHEN IS it the "right" time for a film-maker or a writer to revisit a tragedy such as the 9/11 attacks without appearing insensitive? Indeed, is there a point at all in reopening the old wounds, especially when the bereaved families are still struggling to come to terms with their loss? Does such an exercise simply amount to voyeurism dressed up as creative exploration?

These were the questions British film-maker Paul Greengrass was confronted with when, barely months after 9/11, he thought of making a film recreating the final moments of one of the four planes involved in the attacks. United 93, named after the United Airlines Flight 93 which missed its target and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania killing all the 44 people on board, opened in Britain last week to rave reviews but it was nearly not made.

Mr. Greengrass, one of Britain's most talented film-makers and best known for his gritty docu-drama on the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, had shelved the project after he was warned that American sensitivities on the subject were still too strong and it was not the right time to make such a film. But the idea stayed with him and the July 7 London bombings last year, which affected him personally as he spent a couple of agonising hours wondering about the whereabouts of his son, led him to revive the project because he felt that terror was not simply an issue about American sensitivities.

"It impacts the whole world," he told The Sunday Times recalling his own experience of the London bombings. "My grown-up son was out and about, and I couldn't get hold of him. He did phone... and he was perfectly all right, but I felt fear and anger that such things can happen. That afternoon I decided that I was going to try to make the film," he said.

Still wary of the families' reaction, he sought their cooperation and they agreed to help him establishing the profiles of the passengers on that ill-fated plane. This helped him avoid cinematic clichés such as crying babies and honeymooning couples that are such a staple diet of disaster movies.

But there was still uncertainty how the American public would react and, in fact, when a trailer of United 93 was shown in a theatre in Los Angeles audience reportedly booed and shouted "Too soon." But when the film was released it not only found broad acceptance but was praised for its restraint. Critics were impressed by its honesty with The New York Times, in a left-handed compliment, calling it "the feel-bad movie of the year." This indeed was the purpose — to remind the world of the terrible nature of mindless terrorism.

United Airlines Flight 93 was the only one of the four planes involved in the 9/11 attacks that failed to reach its target and, instead of hitting the White House as it apparently intended to, it crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. None of the 37 passengers, seven crew and four hijackers survived.

But because no damage was done to any high-profile building and there were no casualties on the ground, the tragedy of Flight 93 was overshadowed by the havoc caused by the other three planes, especially those that crashed into the Twin Towers. Families of the Flight 93 victims have often complained that 9/11 has come to be identified only with the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, whereas if there were any heroes that day they were the passengers of Flight 93. It was thanks to their efforts — even if prompted by their own survival instinct — that the aircraft missed the White House by a hair's breadth.

Until this film was made, much of the creative narrative of 9/11— through writings, television documentaries — had focussed on the Twin Towers tragedy. Mr. Greengrass ventured where his American peers either did not care to or believed that it was too early to take a cold, clinical, and non-judgmental look at what, understandably, remains a sensitive subject in America.

United 93 reconstructs the last journey of the flight from the time it takes off from Newark international airport (since renamed Newark Liberty international airport) en route San Francisco and is then hijacked. The mood inside the plane as the hijackers run amuck — hitting passengers, threatening to blow up the aircraft, and then taking over the controls — is interspersed with scenes of confusion and shock and horror in the air-traffic control centre and military headquarters as officials try to make sense of what is happening.

Passengers realise the gravity of the situation when they learn that two planes have already crashed into the twin towers. It is then that they decide to act, but as a struggle ensues hijackers crash the plane to prevent the passengers from taking control.

It is a stark, unsentimental view of the events based on the accounts of the relatives of the victims who were able to speak to them on phone as the plane went down; newspaper reports; and the findings of the 9/11 inquiry commission. But in the end it is about innocent people caught up in a cycle of mindless violence wreaked in the name of religion.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Jacking up oil prices
Not yet an e-leader
Will Prodi pull a rabbit out of the hat?
BJP in a state of siege
Legal cooperation across the Himalayas
Looking back at 9/11 unsentimentally
Corrections and clarifications
Resist this U.S. backlash
Skewed priorities
Fuel price hike
President's powers
Inbuilt in Constitution
Reservation debate
Defies logic

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu