Dis-United 93
Yesterday and out of curiosity I went to see United 93. The room was full but this time no kids. The movie was supposed to start at 7:20 pm but we waited for about 30 more minutes. Frankly you can feel how everybody in the room got bored and in my case I had memorized almost all the AMC ads, quizzes and Q&As that were projected on the screen, until a number of guys in the audience shouted at the guy behind the projector and demanded that the movie starts immediately! The guy just ignored them and he continued sending the same boring ADs. Faced with the growing discomfort inside the room he finally launched the movie and the room submerged in a deep silence.
As I always liked to do when I want to see a movie for the first time, I go by myself. This time it was somehow strange for no body sat next to me (left and right seats) although I can see people looking, in vain, for seats... , Anyhow, I just, naively, thought may be they figuered out that I was an arab guy and who knows...
If we put aside the central story behind the crash of the United 93 plane,from an artistic and fictional point of view the movie in itself was good.I find it really bone-chilling for each one of us can imagine the horrible situation to be on a hijacked plane that ends by a tragic crash. However, the reason I am not going to discuss the story of flight United 93, is because, until now, no body knows what really happened on September 11, 2001. The whole tragic events that happened on that day are still shrouded in secrecy and mystery but I am just curious to know why the movie director specifically chose flight United 93 and made a movie out of it? why not a movie about the two other planes that crashed into the world trade center and that the whole world saw them on TV? (The one that crashed into the Pentagon is out question because it also remains a mystery, was it a plane? or a missile? or something else? no body knows).Anyhow, the movie was so heartbreaking that you can hear people in the audience burst into cries and I can understand that, nonetheless they clapped their hands with a feeling of joy mixed with revenge when one of the "hijackers" was killed by the angry and frightened passengers.
Being an arab and moslem myself, I felt somehow humiliated and sick in the guts by the so negative image of the "hijackers". They were portrayed as heartless and full of hate while having a strong faith in God, and in the mission they had to accomplish.Throughtout the movie the "hijackers" were reciting verses of the Kuran and prayers to God to assist them in the mission, to bring them peace and love and happiness and award them His Eternal Paradise, something that I found incompatible with their foolish and resentful behaviour with the passengers, they were like monsters. After all, this image of the "arab-moslem terrorist" is still engraved in the imagination of the general public and this movie, to my point of view, is like putting a knife in a bleeding wound. At a time where the world is calling for tolerance, peace and dialogue of religions and civilizations, this movie revives back those same misconceptions and negative stereotypes about arabs and moslems which only adds fuel to fire.
Personally, one point that the director excelled in portraying is the fact that on September 11, nothing worked well, everything was out of joint and there was no unity at all, something that politicians in Washington failed to explain but Hollywood seems to have succeeded in bringing it up to the public.
As I always liked to do when I want to see a movie for the first time, I go by myself. This time it was somehow strange for no body sat next to me (left and right seats) although I can see people looking, in vain, for seats... , Anyhow, I just, naively, thought may be they figuered out that I was an arab guy and who knows...
If we put aside the central story behind the crash of the United 93 plane,from an artistic and fictional point of view the movie in itself was good.I find it really bone-chilling for each one of us can imagine the horrible situation to be on a hijacked plane that ends by a tragic crash. However, the reason I am not going to discuss the story of flight United 93, is because, until now, no body knows what really happened on September 11, 2001. The whole tragic events that happened on that day are still shrouded in secrecy and mystery but I am just curious to know why the movie director specifically chose flight United 93 and made a movie out of it? why not a movie about the two other planes that crashed into the world trade center and that the whole world saw them on TV? (The one that crashed into the Pentagon is out question because it also remains a mystery, was it a plane? or a missile? or something else? no body knows).Anyhow, the movie was so heartbreaking that you can hear people in the audience burst into cries and I can understand that, nonetheless they clapped their hands with a feeling of joy mixed with revenge when one of the "hijackers" was killed by the angry and frightened passengers.
Being an arab and moslem myself, I felt somehow humiliated and sick in the guts by the so negative image of the "hijackers". They were portrayed as heartless and full of hate while having a strong faith in God, and in the mission they had to accomplish.Throughtout the movie the "hijackers" were reciting verses of the Kuran and prayers to God to assist them in the mission, to bring them peace and love and happiness and award them His Eternal Paradise, something that I found incompatible with their foolish and resentful behaviour with the passengers, they were like monsters. After all, this image of the "arab-moslem terrorist" is still engraved in the imagination of the general public and this movie, to my point of view, is like putting a knife in a bleeding wound. At a time where the world is calling for tolerance, peace and dialogue of religions and civilizations, this movie revives back those same misconceptions and negative stereotypes about arabs and moslems which only adds fuel to fire.
Personally, one point that the director excelled in portraying is the fact that on September 11, nothing worked well, everything was out of joint and there was no unity at all, something that politicians in Washington failed to explain but Hollywood seems to have succeeded in bringing it up to the public.
posted by Hannibal | 4:31 PM
2 Comments:
@Hannibal : j'ai lu ta note ; j'ai à peu près compris l'essentiel. Je fais des progrès en anglais grâce à toi.
Alors je dois dire que je n'irais jamais voir un tel film ; ça me stresse trop. J'aime bien par exemple les films policiers mais les films tragiques à ce point, c'est au dessus de mes forces. ça me fait même accélérer le coeur dangereusement.
Pour le 11 septembre... je dois dire que je fais partie des rares personnes qui n'ont jamais vu aucune image du crash des avions. Je n'ai pas vu la télé ; je n'ai pas écouté la radio. J'ai filtré les informations. J'ai su ce qui c'était passé mais je pensais que l'image n'ajouterait rien ; au contraire cette image me plongerait dans le désespoir, le désespoir de voir qu'on vit dans un monde si mauvais.
Pourquoi a-t-on choisi United 93 et pas les autres avions pour ce film ? A mon avis, il est peut être encore difficile de "toucher" au World Trade Center. United 93, c'est un "simple" avion qui s'écrase. A New York, c'est autre chose qui dépasse tout ce qu'on pouvait connaître, imaginer, ressentir, ... Je suis sûr que des films finiront pas se faire sur les tours écroulées de New York mais ce sera sans doute plus long.
J'ai lu, il y a quelques jours, les transcriptions des enregistrements de bord d'un des appareils (peut être bien United 93) juste avant le crash. On entendait bien les terroristes invoquer Dieu... jusqu'au moment ultime. ça fait effectivement mal d'entendre des gens se réclamer de Dieu et faire cela mais c'est la triste réalité. Et il faut bien avouer qu'ils n'étaient certainement pas fous. ça rassure de penser qu'ils étaient fous mais ils ne l'étaient manifestement pas. La folie c'est une pathologie médicale ; elle relève de la médecine, de la psychiatrie notamment. Eux ils n'étaient sûrement pas fous au sens médical ; ils avaient simplement une conviction profonde et ils ont agi implacablement, avec une détermination impressionante, sans apparemment fléchir, même au dernier moment. Ce n'est malheureusement pas de la folie. C'est autre chose. Je ne sais pas comment on doit l'appeller cette attitude ; il n'y a pas de mot pour décrire ce qu'ils ont fait.
En fait, je ne vois pas trop l'intérêt d'un tel film. ça véhicule effectivement des clichés multiples sur tout le monde, ça rend plus explicite un événement qu'on n'avait pas forcément envie de connaître dans ses moindres détails (détails qui sont d'ailleurs en partie imaginés par le scénario je suppose). Peut être que certains, notamment des membres de familles de victimes, seront contents de le voir ; ce sera peut être une forme de thérapie... mais bon la thérapie de certains doit elle passer par un film hollywoodien ? Je ne crois pas. Et puis faire de l'argent avec ce genre d'événement récent, j'aime pas. Et puis moi, l'historien, j'aime pas qu'on parle des événements trop récents. Il faut du recul, des années de réflexion pour analyser un phénomène (et 4 ans et demi, ce n'est pas suffisant !), un événément dans sa complexité, accumuler les informations, les preuves et aussi (et surtout !) laisser le temps à l'émotion de s'atténuer afin de livrer une vision objective des événements, une vision dépouillée des artifices qui naissent d'une proximité trop grande et d'une implication trop personnelle dans les événements que l'on tente d'étudier.
c'est la même histoire depuis les cow-boys et les indiens,l'amerique a toujours fait ainsi son imagerie populaire, d'un côté les bons, de l'autre les méchants, elle est en guerre, et mettre des etiquettes lui permet d'avoir bonne conscience
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