Reviews – Film
June 2006
This month, Anna Wood assesses ‘United 93’, Paul Greengrass’s take on 9/11, while a DVD reissue of Escape to Victory provides a rather less demanding history lesson
United 93
Director: Paul Greengrass
Cert: 15
United 93 shows events, as best we can imagine them or piece them back together, on the morning of September 11 2001 on the fourth plane, the one that was hijacked but didn’t hit its target in Washington, in which the passengers realised what was happening and attacked their hijackers. We see it almost in real time, over 111 minutes, with no context, no characterisation, no hindsight, almost like a crime reconstruction.
By showing us events so clinically, director Paul Greengrass allows us to think in greater detail about 9/11, and remember what happened and how it affected us and continues to affect us. There’s no subplot, no romance, no human interest stories, no crass dramatic flourishes, just a basic, powerful rendition. The clinical depiction gives us a macro-lens clarity, it allows room for all kinds of questions and reflections, for thoughts to creep in, for reactions and feelings we may have forgotten about to resurface.
At the start of the film, we see something of how bustling and busy Air Traffic Control centres are; we’re reminded of how jobs can be so boring and still so important. It induces a dull panic. With all that detail and procedure, all those hundreds of people working in ATC, how was anyone going to be able to see what was happening or act quickly enough? The first hijacked plane is being followed on the ATC screen, a green blob going in the wrong direction. “We’ve lost it. It’s disappeared somewhere around Manhattan,” says one controller. Moments later the World Trade Centre is on fire, but some time passes before those tracking and advising planes link their missing aircraft to the burning building. Meanwhile, Flight United 93 is taking off, with no warnings, no useful contact, no clue. There’s no one to blame here, we just see it as it happens.
There’s no political criticism in the film either. Clearance from the President to shoot down hijacked plane is sought, but the President cannot be found. Nor can the Vice-President. Now we know where Bush was, and that he fled to a bunker after he heard about the attacks. Here, we just see the phonecalls being made, professionals trying to find out if they are allowed to use fighter planes to bring down commercial aircraft. After the controllers realise that their fighter planes aren’t actually armed, we hear the desperate suggestion, “What if we ram them and then eject?” It feels odd that we are so gripped when we know what’s going to happen. Would fighter planes have made any difference by that point anyway?
We see the details, the humdrum, the polite but impersonal interactions; the unappetising plane food, the liquid soap and little taps in the toilets, the cheap curtains between first class and standard. We hear the phonecalls to loved ones, as well as a call by one hijacker to his own loved ones before he boards the plane. There are a couple of hammy lines, a couple of tacky shots, but the pivotal points, the embarrassment of seminal moments, are handled with surgical calm. The view of the World Trade Centre through the plane window is easy to miss; when we hear “Let’s roll”, it’s not some action-movie line, it’s part of a longer, fearful, determined utterance. When the planes hit, there’s no music, no drama, just the impact and the calm, contained reactions of those in the ATC tower. Some of the actors are actually staff who were working that day.
One man who plays himself in the film, Ben Sliney, is a counterpoint to Bush: he was there, and he took what action he could. He was the Federal Aviation Authority’s director of operations, and 11 September was his first day on the job. Sliney grounded all flights when he realised the US was under attack: around 4200 planes that were up in the air were ordered down. This was a relatively small, courageous decision on a day full of decisions by ordinary people that shook up some of our ideas about what courage is.
Remembering things is not so simple as it sounds. No one has forgotten 9/11, but remembering is more than storing away a date along with some rage, anxiety and incomprehension. It’s an ongoing process. The events on that morning were the epicentre of so much, and the start of wars, but the people on those planes – or in the two towers – didn’t know who was killing them or why. Looking at this depiction of them is as disturbing and upsetting as it’s bound to be, but with our five years’ distance, our five years that approximately 3000 people didn’t have, it’s powerful and almost a relief to look so closely one part of the events, to think about it in these close-up terms. In our eagerness to remember, a film which meticulously documents events as they may have happened, with rigour and an even hand, is invaluable.
Escape to Victory
Director: John Huston
Cert: PG
No doubt through some kind of PR cunning rather than coincidence, ‘Escape to Victory’ is being rereleased on DVD just ahead of this year’s Germany-hosted World Cup. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the film, it tells the tale of Allied prisoners of war who play a match against Nazis during WW2 and in the process, escape (I’m hardly giving the ending away – it’s in the title after all.)
It’s really a terrible film in all kinds of ways, but then one reason it’s so loved by millions is because it’s so clunky and naive. There are no pretensions here, and barely any acting. The ridiculous plot is helped along by step-by-step dialogue from a cast who can play football but can’t necessarily play their parts. Michael Caine, perhaps the ultimate clunky-dialogue actor, stars as a former England player, Captain John Colby. The match is arranged when Colby is recognised in the POW camp by Nazi Major Karl von Steiner (Max von Sydow), who played for Germany before the war. To add to this fabulous bit of footballing coincidence, the camp also holds Bobby Moore and Pele, plus Osvaldo Ardiles, Mike Summerbee, Co Prins, John Wark, and other Euro stars of the 70s whose names evoke delight and wistful sighs from a certain kind of man down the pub.
This strangely pedigreed cast also helps explain why this film is so good, even though it’s so bad. Von Sydow is a brilliant actor (that was him in ‘The Seventh Seal’ and ‘Pelle the Conqueror’), Caine is a national institution; ‘Escape to Victory’ was directed by John Huston, who 40 years earlier shot ‘The Maltese Falcon’, and 20 years earlier, ‘The Misfits’. They were past their peaks, but it was quite a team making this film. And that’s before you put in the footballers – and Sylvester Stallone. ‘Escape to Victory’ was made in 1981, and post-‘Rocky’, pre-‘Rambo’ Stallone was a pretty perfect choice for the GI goalkeeper (although it’s best not to think about Steve McQueen in The Great Escape while you’re watching Stallone do his sporty, cocky thing). Is there any other film with such a brilliantly blokey cast?
But the key to the film is how it deals with the Nazis and, obliquely, with the Holocaust. Like the best kind of bloke down the pub, it’s absolutely matter-of-fact, generous and good-hearted, without being at all realistic. Colby has five East European footballers pulled out of labour camps to play with the Allies (no one ever says Jewish or concentration camp, perhaps they wouldn’t have, I don’t know). The men arrive, skeletal, lousy. These five are actually, logically, the nub of the film. They are the reason the others agree to go to Paris to play in a huge Nazi propaganda match, and the reason they agree to attempt an escape. Most of these men are risking their lives when they could just go back to their frankly rather cushy camp, but the Eastern Europeans would be going back to their deaths and so they all must play.
At the end of the climactic match, when our boys make good their escape with the help of the crowd (“Some of the Resistance are on the pitch…”), the score is actually a draw. It’s still a victory for the Allies, of course, and Sydow watches paternally as Stallone, Caine, Pele and the others are pulled into the crowd, covered in civilian clothes. Sydow gives us a regretful, humane Nazi, one who dreams of “solving arguments with football rather than war,” but one who would be despicable under any scrutiny. But this isn’t about the Nazis and the evils of war, it’s about unity, loyalty and the positive force of football. Really. Which might make it a perfect 2006 World Cup DVD release.
