United 93

I stayed in tonight. Cleaned my apartment for three hours (seriously! I don't even have that much square footage going on in here, don't even ask me how that worked, but there it is), changed kitty litter, took the out the trash, dusted, vacuumed, prepared laundry to bring to parents' house tomorrow, brushed the cats, made a half-hearted attempt to clip Butters' claws becuase she can hardly walk without getting stuck to the capet, but quickly gave up.

It was an extremely mundane evening, but I enjoyed it.

Then I got United 93 on my On Demand, as there was precious little on television.

First of all, this film is excellent. Excellent. But I struggled over whether or not to write about it or recommend it (although obviously I am, and I do).

I don't know if it's becuase it's "too soon," becuase I don't think it is. September 11 is my generation's Pearl Harbor, and I think five years is enough of a mourning period to have gone by to start examining it artistically ( although please, God, 40 years from now do NOT let the disembodied preserved head of Jerry Bruckheimer make a movie starring Violet Affleck as a plucky flight attendant or some shit. Please. I'll probably still be alive then, but that would probably kill me, or at least make me violently ill, as I am sure the atrocity that was the Ben Affleck "epic" (epice piece of crap) Pearl Harbor made the WWII vets still alive to see it).

But...it's just so raw, this film, and it made me realize how raw I still am about 9/11. Nothing directly happened to me that day, aside from as an American. All my friends in Washington and New York were safe. I didn't lose any family members, but I felt it--the shock, the grief, the rage, the horror--so strongly then, just as I did tonight watching this movie.

I wept through half the film, and flashed back to sitting in my parents' bedroom that morning, after my mom called me from work and woke me up to tell me to turn on the tv. I remember as though it were yesterday, kneeling on the floor, clutching the phone to my chest and watching the second plane hit and thinking about my father, who was due to fly from Boston to Los Angeles that morning. As it turns out, the flight my father was booked on was set to leave Boston an hour or so after all flights were grounded, so he never even made it all the way into the airport before being turned right back around.

His travel agent had offered him a seat on and earlier flight, United 175, which was the plane I watched explode in a fireball on live television. Dad didn't want to get up so early. If my father were a morning person, he would be dead at the hands of fucking terrorist coward bastards right now, and I would have watched it happen on live TV, and watched it again tonight, as the film used real news footage of that flight's fateful end.

So that is what's raw about this film, at least for me. It felt real, like it was happening all over again. It plays out in real-time, almost in documentary-style, particularly the scenes set in air traffic control towers. We are not given background stories or personal information or even much dialogue--apart from frantic, whispered games of "telephone" as the passengers who are surreptitously using cell and airphones to call loved ones relay information about the other hijacked planes--from the heroic passengers and crew on board.

One by one, helpless air traffic controllers lose radio contact with the blips on their screens and then watch them blink off radar. Confusion reigns, orders are shouted, misinformation speeds through the various levels of command. I learned afterwards that many of the people in these scenes were played by the actual air traffic controllers involved, and they all did an excellent job of portraying the overwhleming panic and dread taking hold that morning as they realized that each of the 4,200 planes in the air had suddenly become potential deadly weapons.

A running theme early in the movie is the disbelief from each new person that hears the news of the hijackings. "Shit, another one?" "Did he say planes as in plural?" It reminds you just how unbelievable these events were. If, God forbid, anything resembling 9/11 would ever happen again, we know now there would be no disbelief, only steely acceptance. You're only innocent once.

As the national FAA director (playing himself, and damn impressively) makes the call to ground all U.S. air traffic and stop all international flights from crossing our borders, an underling questions the decision, pointing out how much money it will cost, as though still not understanding the full gravity of what is happening. The director points to the TV screens showing footage of the WTC and Pentagon in flames and aptly points out, "We are at war with someone. I want those planes on the ground." And I believe that is exactly how it played out in real life.

Which is why, despite the fact we will never know for sure (although the families of all 40 victims on board flight 93 cooperated fully with filmmakers, providing every detail they could muster, including tearful phone messages) what exactly happened on that plane, I believe it could have happened exactly as portrayed. And it breaks my heart. That they desperately tried, until the last possible second, to survive, knowing they probably wouldn't, but knowing that if they didn't do something the plane they were on was going to fly into another building...I am just amazed, amazed at how some people were able to at least make an effort in a situation that would have no doubt paralyzed me with shock and grief and fear. Several passengers are portrayed making phone calls, leaving messages of love.

So, everyone must see this film, despite the fact that it will be difficult, and will probably make you cry, and might make you lose some sleep (I know I'm about to have some trouble in that department). It contains zero politics, zero hint at any of the bullshit that has gone on in the country in the last few years, it merely presents the events of that horrific day and implores you not to forget.

I know I never will.