Reality as Art

Rating: 10/10 (3 May 2006)

Sometimes an artist tries to interpret reality, heighten it, and massage it in order to make clearer its real meaning. But there are some rare realities that are so overpowering that they stand alone and any massaging can only diminish it. Unfortunately, in most cases, the ego of the artist cannot resist the imperative to try and clarify further. The director in this film has successfully resisted these natural artistic impulses, and in so doing allowed the art of reality to manifest itself, as itself. That in itself signals an artist of a higher caliber.
This is not a documentary. It is indeed an artistic film.
Beyond art, the reality of the events are straightforward. There are no political statements, no indictments, no rah-rah. We see failure and we see heroism in equal parts as normal people react to crisis. We see competence and incompetence hand in hand. We decisions made and responsibility taken in one moment, to be negated by incompetence or a flawed system in the next.
This film shows us a massive system designed to protect us break down in chaos and confusion. Those elements of the system capable of processing information and those capable of acting were not in concert. The weakest link of the chain doomed the system.
The only group who was able to process information effectively and act on it were normal Americans just like us. The North American Air Defense Command, the FAA, the Air Force, the CIA, the FBI were unable to save thousands of lives and an irreplaceable American landmark of the soul on that day despite the desire and will to do so. But Tom Burnett and the others on Flight 93 were.
If there is a message in this film. Perhaps that is it. Each of us may be required to take action some day in defense of ourselves, and something larger than ourselves. We are America, not some far away FAA official, not a local police agency, not some Colonel in some underground command center, not a Department full of federal employees.
We must take our survival, and that of our country, into our own hands from time to time. Be ready.