Moving beyond all expectations

Rating: 10/10 (28 July 2006)

Tonight as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival I attended a screening of "United 93". I was moved by this film in a way no other film has ever moved me. Having had only a scant knowledge of the events surrounding the fourth hijacked plane on that fateful September 11th, the film portrayed so graphically the horrors faced by those poor souls who died on this flight, that I felt almost as if I was there with them - right the way to the tragic end. I do not recall ever leaving a cinema and observing so many other theatre goers who were wiping away tears, and looking as stunned and emotionally "wrung out" as I felt myself tonight. To see theatre ushers comforting one another as they sobbed (male and female) openly, and partners locked in supportive embrace while also crying unashamably in public, is a sight I have never encountered following the screening of a film. The impact was so great I am still reeling an hour later, my thoughts, a mixture of sadness and sorrow. For me the "alarm bells" are ringing, and the question I have been asking myself for the past hour is this .... If organised religion means acts such as this can be justified, then isn't it time to rid ourselves of such institutions, and to seek faith on a personal and private level? No god could sanction such acts against humanity. I defy anyone with an ounce of compassion not to be effected in some way by "United 93".