Dassel 1
Review of: United 93
Name of Reviewer: Mary Frances Dassel
I. Description
A. Synopsis
Billed as a docudrama, United 93 portrays the hijacking and subsequent passenger response of United Airlines flight 93, the fourth of 9/11’s hijacked planes. The film begins the night before the attacks and follows the extremists’ boarding and eventual take-over. The extremists begin their hijacking by attacking a flight attendant and scaring the passengers into submission with a fake bomb. They eventually kill the pilots and take over the cockpit. The passengers, learning of the World Trade Center attacks by phone, form a resistance and cause the plane to crash in a deserted Pennsylvania field rather than the Capitol, its original target. While the drama unfolds on the plane, the film also shows the drama on the ground as military and FAA personnel scramble to understand the situation.
B. Extremists Portrayed/Described
This film portrays the four hijackers of flight United 93: Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed al-Nami, Ahmed al-Haznawi, and Saeed al-Ghamdi, all Islamic extremists with apparent ties to Osama bin Laden.
C. Extremist Activities
The extremists overpower the flight crew, stab a passenger and a flight attendant to death, and take control over the plane, with the intent to steer it into the Capitol building in D.C. Additionally, the hijackers threaten the passengers with a fake bomb and knives in order to subdue a resistance.
D. Role of Religion in Extremist Activities
The film opens with Ziad praying in Arabic and reading the Qur’an. The other hijackers can be seen praying while prostrated. During the attacks, the hijackers utter phrases such as “In the name of God;” “Lord, to you I have submitted myself;” “I have given you my faith, on you I depend;” and “Thanks be to God, we are in his hands.”
D. Portrayal/Description of Non-Violent Religious People
The film briefly shows the passengers reciting the Lord’s prayer as they realize their fate. Also, a billboard which reads “God Bless America” is conspicuously dominant in a frame focusing on the towers of the World Trade Center.
II. Evaluation
Surprisingly for a film which tends to revel in jingoism and misrepresentation, United 93 manages to avoid turning the hijackers into caricatures by depicting them with some humanity. The night before the attack, for example, as the men wait and prepare in their hotel room, the leader of the group, Ziad, appears anxious and seems to reconsider the plot entirely. When waiting to board the plane, Ziad makes a call, presumably to a family member, to say that he loves them. While on the plane, every member of the group appears fearful and seems to reconsider the plan right up until the moment they start to take over. By showing theses scenes of hesitation and fear, the filmmakers manage to give the hijackers an element of humanity—rather than showcasing single-minded fanaticism, these hijackers illustrate the intensity of real human beings facing death.
Though the film manages to portray the hijackers with as much humanity as possible, it fails to adequately represent both Islam and the extremists’ motivations. Rather than illustrating the extent to which the extremists are marginal figures within Islam, the film portrays the hijackers as mainstream and paints Islam as monolithic.
The opening scene establishes this misrepresentation by focusing on Ziad praying in Arabic and reading the Qur’an the night before the attacks. Because the film offers no context for this scene and no subtitles to make Ziad’s prayer intelligible for a largely English-speaking audience, Islam is presented as utterly foreign and utterly “Other.” Additionally, because foreboding music builds as the film blends scenes of preparation with scenes of prayer, Islam is clearly portrayed as something to be feared. This sense of fear continues when the camera pans over the streets and skyline of New York as a voiceover prays in Arabic. By combining a bird’s eye view of the skyline of New York, an image which carries emotional baggage for an American audience, with a voice speaking in Arabic off screen, the film suggests that Islam is a menace, ominously lurking and waiting to strike. In all of these scenes, the filmmakers make no attempt to portray Islam favorably.
Not only does the film paint Islam as something to be feared, it also ignores any nuance in the religion and rejects any complex explanation of the extremists’ motivations. While the extremists overpower the crew and take control of the plane, Ziad and others recite phrases such as “In the name of God;” “Lord, to you I have submitted myself;” “I have given you my faith, on you I depend;” and “Thanks be to God, we are in his hands.” These phrases, some of the few Arabic words which get translated into subtitles for the audience, are the only explanation the film gives for the extremists’ actions. In so doing, the filmmakers suggest that these men are not on the fringes of Islam, but are rather acting on a supposedly inherently violent religion. Further, that the phrases are recited in an almost habitual rigidity suggests that Islam brainwashes its adherents and forces them into unthinking submission.
Because Islam is portrayed in this simplistic way, the film rejects any opportunity to explore both the nuances of the religion and the complexity of extremist responses. By portraying the hijackers as brainwashed zealots bent on destruction, the film ignores explanations such those in sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer’s Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, which posits that Islamic extremists are reacting against secular nationalism. In so doing, the filmmakers portray the hijackers in the film as mainstream Muslims who kill indiscriminately merely for the sake of violence, rather than as extremists who respond to a deeply-rooted belief in a cosmic war between good and evil.
By manipulating sounds and images to render emotional, visceral responses, the filmmakers invite the audience, not to approach Islamic extremists with understanding and nuance, but instead to indict Islam as a brainwashing, violent, and ultimately dangerous religion. Further, by suggesting that the hijackers are acting within mainstream Islam, the film ignores calls by Juergensmeyer to understand extremists as existing on the fringes of Islam and as responding to perceived threats of secular society. Additionally, by giving simplistic explanations of the justifications of the hijackers as revealed through a handful of recited phrases, the filmmakers miss an opportunity to explore some of the more complex elements that influence extremism. The film ignores explanations such as those in political scientist Gabriel Almond’s Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World, which details how feelings of alienation and marginalization factor in the creation of religious extremism. Ultimately, then, United 93, while portraying the hijackers as human, portray Islam as a monolithic and dangerous menace.