Now there is a contradiction, eh?  I want you to go , but I won’t.  The reasons why are fairly complicated, as is my feeling about the movie.  In certain ways the movie is a good thing and a bad thing.

The story of how the passengers of Flight 93 is a grand epic on some senses and a tragedy in others.  To look at it in the terms of the "hero" film one can easily see the elements that make it compelling:  The drama was playing out live, via cell phones and recordings as the passengers of the flight found themselves not only hijacked but due to the timing, forewarned as to what there fate would be, and in knowing that, they took fate in their own hands,

That immediately brings many conflicting emotions and images.  For the families, the heart wrenching feeling of loss and despair, as the families knew their loved ones were doomed.  There must have been an intense feeling of the inevitable, the waiting for their deaths, then a rush of adrenalin as the revolt takes place, pride then fear as contact is lost, and lingering hope that is shattered with the news of the crash.  Hollywood prides itself on movies that take you on "an emotional roller coaster" but the reality of this event makes that seem tame.

To those of us not connected as closely to the flight, we can say we shared their pain, but it is a lie.  I cannot share any of that, and moreover, I have to deal with my own personal shame: Would I have had the guts to do the same?  If faced with my certain death, would I have hidden in a corner, or struck back against the hijackers?  I can hope in my life, if I am faced with that manner of choice, that I would be remembered with such pride.  I can hope.

It also brings about an element of sadness and futility.  The reality of the events is that the passengers actions may have not made any tangible difference.  They were fated to die and they did.  All they did in a way is change the crash site.  Sure, had the plane actually reached DC there may have been an additional loss of life, but that is obviously speculation.  We don’t know what would have happened.  And there is even the rawest possibility that had they acted differently the plane and its passengers could have been saved.  Did they doom themselves?  I truly doubt it.  From the moment they boarded that plane, their fate in that sense was sealed.  But once the door is opened to speculation, then you have let in all scenarios, even the unpleasant ones.

There is however the element of triumph that the film evokes.  The bible says the passage we have heard countless times:  "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13)"  This we hear trumpeted repeatedly when this flight is memorialized, and I cannot deny that it is true.  They did knowingly make a sacrifice, in the tradition of heroes of  our greatest wars.  The images in a war movie have always been compelling:  The lone soldier rushing the fortified enemy position against overwhelming odds.  This is no less in many ways, and is far greater in one:  That these people were not the trained and armed soldiers fighting in a battle, they were you and I traveling routinely, just living their lives, only to find themselves in a battle that has defined a war.  The war came to them.  They responded.

The movie has also evoked the kooks, the 911 conspiracy people who claim that the flight was shot down, and that 911 was staged, that these people were killed to start a war.  A pox on them.  To stage a protest in front of the movie screening where the families are is tacky.

Many people complain the movie is too soon, and initially I wondered the same.  But having considered this, I think in some ways it is too long delayed.  The sad truth is that our culture is removed from the realities of the world.  We sit in our comfy chairs, watching MTV and the HBO, while the world rages its wars around us.  Not until it spills into our laps do we howl. 

911 draws constant comparisons to WWII, but the reality is that our generation has not been faced with the reality of war like our grandparents generation was.  The anti war people like Cindy Sheehan bemoan the loss of life there, the 2000+ soldiers in the last 3 years, whereas our grandparents were to see thousands die in single battles and eventually 62 million people die in World War 2.  At home, there were constant reminders, newsreels, shortages, stars in windows.  Even the movies and cartoons reminded us of the war.

Now days, we are not only insulated, we are actually encouraged to hold the war in disdain by media that cares more for the occasional casualty and the rumors of misdeeds then it does for the victories and the positive humanitarian aspects.  Politicians vie for position, making sea changes based on the latest anti war poll.

And all along behind them, fogotten in the games of policy and power, the real battle wages on.

So now we have the first motion picture (theatrical release, there has already been a TV movie) about the events of the day.  Should you see it?

Yes.  I think, based on the reviews and the endorsements by the families that is as honest of an account as is possible in this case.  The movie has eschewed exploitative rhetoric and instead present factual representations, for all their good and bad.  I think our children need the reminder of what this is all about, what the war means to those who fought the first battle.  I think too many of us have forgotten 911and all it meant.  The fact that there has not been a repeat attack has made us comfortable and ignorant.  We don’t care about the conflict in Iraq where the enemy is the insurgency not terrorists, where anti war commentators and politicians vilify our own troops and glorify the enemy by calling them patriots and freedom fighters and calling our troops the aggressors and invaders.

I think in a sense we also owe it to the families, in a way.  They have invited us to share their pain, the last moments of their loved ones.  Can we ignore them?

So why won’t I go see it?  Well eventually I might, though presently I don’t plan on it.   But frankly there is nothing that movie can tell me I do not know, there is nothing I will see and hear in it that will change how I feel. 

Maybe it’s my military roots coming out, but I have been aware via briefings and such of the threats these people embodied for a few decades.  I served active duty the last time we fought Iraq, and I knew then about the terrorists.  I have close friends who have gone and will go again to serve in Iraq.  I have not forgotten anything about the war, or 911.  I have followed the accounts closely, the reports daily.

Sure that sounds smug and patronizing, and I apologize if it offends.  But it’s how I feel.

But then again…maybe it is my secret shame that drives me to feel this way, maybe it is my own fear and self loathing that keeps me away.  So maybe this movie is as much for me as anyone else. 

Maybe I will see you there after all.  While I think I owe it to the families, mostly, I think I owe it to myself.

(please feel free to use this post for open trackback Friday)
(Open trackbacks sent to Stop The ACLU, MacBros Place, Gospal Fiction, Comedian Jenée: People are Idiots, Woman Honor Thyself,  NIF, Right Wing Nation, imagine kitty magazine)

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