United 93

My favorite films so far this year have been unpleasant ones. But while Wolf Creek and Hostel were nasty in a fun way, there's nothing fun at all about United 93.

I initially had no intention of seeing the film but did so on account of the rave reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. The reviewers are right: the film isn't exploitive or sensational, and Greengrass did a very good job. His casting and directing techniques made for sharp cinema, completely devoid of melodrama. For instance, he used a lot of civilian non-actors and even officials who play themselves (like Ben Sliney of the FAA), and with the camera he favored jumpy, hand-held shots which accentuate the chaos of unfolding events. And I'm claustrophobic, so this technique made the inside-plane scenes particularly unpleasant for me.

Most importantly, as noted by Roger Ebert, United 93 doesn't demonize the terrorists:

"The film doesn't depict the terrorists as villains. It has no need to. Like everyone else in the movie they are people of ordinary appearance, going about their business. United 93 is incomparably more powerful because it depicts all of its characters as people trapped in an exorable progress toward tragedy. The movie contains no politics. No theory. No personal chit-chat. No patriotic speeches. We never see the big picture."

Any injection of hindsight politics -- whether pro- or anti-Bush -- would have destroyed this film, and it was pleasant (in the midst of feeling so unpleasant) to see the right decisions being made at every turn. Likewise, there is no effort to glorify the passengers who end up making an assault on the cockpit. Greengrass directs them as realistically as possible, and as a result they come across as they surely were: simple ordinary folk who acted in chaotic desperation. In sum, there is nothing Hollywood at all about this film, and I recommend it -- for those who don't mind feeling sickeningly helpless for a couple hours, that is.