There have been good films, great films and films which were criminally ignored in the '00s. Though Paul Greengras' United 93 clutched a deserving Oscar nod for Best Director, and being one of my favorite films, I had to endure the scalding insult of answering the disparaging question, "United 93? What's that? Oh, is it, like, a football movie or something?"
Uh-uh. It's something else, you know, something that can't be put into words. Is it enjoyable? Not really. Is it, um, great? Absolutely. But yeah, not many people have heard about it. That's because it doesn't feature any known actors, it wasn't a film of a big, sweaty budget, but it was a film of such prodigious power that it stunned me to my very core. Oh, you'll see, you'll see what I mean when you watch it. That's something a small treatise like this won't do justice to. You can't read about United 93 to get an idea what's it like, you've got to watch it to know it.
So, I had my first encounter with Greengrass' United 93 while I was scanning through the winners of the 79th Academy Awards, which was a big event because, as most film-lovers might recall, Martin Scorsese overpowered his peers to win a long overdue Academy Award for Best Director. And when I saw his name being called out, it was a moment of deep joy for me. But there was Greengrass, the only nominated director that night whose product wasn't in contention for the top prize. I had to watch it because my conscience wouldn't have it otherwise. Little did I know what I was about to see could whiff out any movie vying for any prize on any night.
Concisely, United 93 chronicles the events of United Airlines Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked during the September 11 terrorist attacks, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when the passengers stirred up a surprise rebellion in the aboard flight. And when tackling a film that's based on true events, United 93 gets just about everything right. You've got the hand-held camera style of directing that's almost guerrilla, a way of reminding the audience that it could be passed off as a documentary too, you've got non-actors so that remind us that you don't always need actors to make a film experience endearing and you've got extemporized dialogue that makes the setting look so authentic. And you've got a lot of people playing themselves, most notably FAA operations manager Ben Sliney.
To tell you the truth, for most of its runtime I thought United 93 was spellbinding but not good enough to be ranked as one of the decade's finest, you know. That was until I saw the amount of filmmaking and emotions that Greengrass packed into the last half-hour, the thirty minutes of pure bliss that we are promised and denied so often. And I'm not lying when I'm saying that the last half-hour changed me as a person. Really. A piece of cinema so perfect that it's shattering. I couldn't remember the last time I had watched a film that had moved me so much. And when I finished it, I knew that United 93 wasn't just good, wasn't an experience to be had just once. It was different, a movie that knows what it wants from a director who knows what cinema is.
United 93 is a mammoth achievement, no less, a film that needs to be honored and cherished and watched. I can't tell you just how good it really is, because I don't know myself. My vocabulary shames me. And when a moment like this presents itself, you know the movie's a knockout. If you haven't already seen it, please do so. I can't seem to find a better film to recommend to you. Not in the '00s anyway.
Uh-uh. It's something else, you know, something that can't be put into words. Is it enjoyable? Not really. Is it, um, great? Absolutely. But yeah, not many people have heard about it. That's because it doesn't feature any known actors, it wasn't a film of a big, sweaty budget, but it was a film of such prodigious power that it stunned me to my very core. Oh, you'll see, you'll see what I mean when you watch it. That's something a small treatise like this won't do justice to. You can't read about United 93 to get an idea what's it like, you've got to watch it to know it.
So, I had my first encounter with Greengrass' United 93 while I was scanning through the winners of the 79th Academy Awards, which was a big event because, as most film-lovers might recall, Martin Scorsese overpowered his peers to win a long overdue Academy Award for Best Director. And when I saw his name being called out, it was a moment of deep joy for me. But there was Greengrass, the only nominated director that night whose product wasn't in contention for the top prize. I had to watch it because my conscience wouldn't have it otherwise. Little did I know what I was about to see could whiff out any movie vying for any prize on any night.
Concisely, United 93 chronicles the events of United Airlines Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked during the September 11 terrorist attacks, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when the passengers stirred up a surprise rebellion in the aboard flight. And when tackling a film that's based on true events, United 93 gets just about everything right. You've got the hand-held camera style of directing that's almost guerrilla, a way of reminding the audience that it could be passed off as a documentary too, you've got non-actors so that remind us that you don't always need actors to make a film experience endearing and you've got extemporized dialogue that makes the setting look so authentic. And you've got a lot of people playing themselves, most notably FAA operations manager Ben Sliney.
United 93 is a mammoth achievement, no less, a film that needs to be honored and cherished and watched. I can't tell you just how good it really is, because I don't know myself. My vocabulary shames me. And when a moment like this presents itself, you know the movie's a knockout. If you haven't already seen it, please do so. I can't seem to find a better film to recommend to you. Not in the '00s anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment