Flight 93

the film[^] cropped up on A&E last night. Arts and Entertainment? You have to understand that even after 52 years on this planet I still expect descriptions to match reality. I wouldn't think a film about September 11 2001 would fit either the Arts or the Entertainment description.

You'll note that the link calls the film United 93 but it was called Flight 93 on the TV broadcast.

As a movie it wasn't as hard to watch as I'd expected. I think I've become inured to fictional depictions of swarthy hijackers attacking All American boys.

I think I react to this movie in a different way than an American would. The imminence of my becoming a US citizen notwithstanding there are some gaps that are unbridgeable and I fear I will never react to some things in quite the same way that a native born citizen would. Perhaps that's another way of saying that citizenship or not I'll never be a true American. There'll always be those 48 years living in Australia to remind me that I'm still a Stranger in a Strange Land.

I have to agree with Laura[^] (Laura, you really have to change your setting for comments - it's bloody hard to isolate the page link :-) ) that, as a movie, it was somewhat pointless. It's not as though we don't already know the official story.

Indeed, when I mentioned to Sonya that I had the movie on the HTPC and asked if she wanted to see it before I erased it she made the comment 'I don't like watching movies when I know the end; and especially not when it's such a bummer of an ending'. Well, that's one view from an American though I note that she thinks The Lion King[^] is a great movie so I reckon we've got her number! :-)

What we got was the usual bad guys and heroics. I did find it interesting that the hijackers were portrayed tying red ribbons around their heads in a manner reminiscent of the way Ken Ogata[^] did in the lead up to his Hari Kari scene in Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters[^]. Pure fantasy of course; I've seen no reference to red headbands in the popular media and we really don't know what took place on that plane that day.

In what I take to be a repudiation of the current US administrations invasion of Iraq the most famous line is understated. If you believe the Bush administrations portrayal Todd Beamer[^] ran toward the cockpit shouting 'Let's roll!!!!'. In the movie it's almost whispered by a man who finds himself in a situation from which he cannot escape.

I can relate to the movie portrayal much more easily than I can to the administrations portrayal.