Greengrass's masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (2 May 2006)

Watching United 93, I was suddenly reminded of a paper I had been writing about the director Roberto Rossellini and his post-war 'trilogy' of Italian neo-realist films. Not necessarily because United 93 is about the struggles of the poor in a post-war environment. But because of the qualities of the neo-realist filmmaker's attempts to capture reality as honestly as possible. Like Rossellini, writer/director Paul Greengrass uses real locations, and while not non-professional actors all unknowns in the cast, and does what critic Andre Bazin once wrote, "directs the facts." The film captures the most harrowing aspects of that morning that shook everyone in America (and the world) without pretense or melodrama. There's not a trace of director Greengrass exploiting those who died in the line of a terrorist takeover. And, like Rossellini's films, there is genuine emotion achieved for the audience by just putting up human beings up on the screen, without full-on characterization or over-whelming Hollywood sentimentality. Basically, what Greengrass gives the audience is this "what it is is what it is." This is a power that few filmmakers can pull off, yet he is able to achieve it with what will very likely be the best film of the year released by a major studio.
One of the ways Greengrass is successful is in the style that he uses. In a way, he chooses to abandon all noticeable technique. His cinema verite camera, led with a tenseness that is rather shocking in its non-stop approach by Barry Akyroyd, lets the audience in as if you don't notice what is exactly going on at any given moment. The story is less that than it is just the eventual unfolding of the events. And he cuts between two very specific sets- the air traffic controllers and Norad, and the plane itself. It's important to point out that just in the sheer film-making and pacing, aside from the significance behind the subject matter, shows the filmmaker able to create true taut suspense. One wonders when the hijackers will finally get up from the seats. One wonders if the air traffic controllers will know if the plane is THE plane, among the many others scrambled at the moment, amid the chaos of the twin towers. And one wonders what will happen to the passengers, as they call with every ounce of fear and horror to their loved ones on the ground. And throughout, the tension just keeps on building like a brutal, bleak-as-Bergman vice.
The film has been drawn criticism for being "too soon" in depicting a dramatization of the events of 9/11, and even for being too disturbing for some. To put it mildly, it's not an easy film. The way that Greengrass ends the film alone marks it as enough to make some in the audience just ball their eyes out with tears. But, again like Rossellini and other filmmakers assured with their intent in the depiction, it's not the kind of film that tries to cheat its audience like too many Hollywoodized bio-pics do. The film starts off mundanely, and then pits into a kind of tunnel of consciousness of the situation at hand. It's truly the kind of work that isn't afraid to provoke a response out of its viewers, which (as an American) was all the more rewarding for me. Like many great films, it asks underlying questions while still working as a piece of storytelling and action, and even through the shaky camera one never wants to look away. In short, I recommend the film to, well, just about anybody, even to those who think of the subject matter as being too taboo, which it is not at all. Stripped from the usual abstractions association in the years following 9/11, it's a peak that Greengrass may never be able to reach again. And so far as of fall 2006, the best film I've seen this year.