Of Jihadists and Samurai

We were supposed to have an autocross today. Alas, with today's weather, this event went the way of our January event - it was cancelled. And guess who the event organizer was for both events? Oy.

With a free day on my hands, I decided to work through some of the DVDs that have stacked up on top of my TV. I ended up watching two films that couldn't be more different than each other, were made 50 years apart, and were both excellent.

First up was United 93. When this film first came out, I was uncertain whether I wanted to see it. Not because of the subject or the potential emotional impact, but because I was afraid that the subject and the hype might overwhelm director Paul Greengrass's skills and lead to a bad film about a topic that deserves the right touch. The glowing reviews convinced me that I wanted to see it, so it was slipped into my Netflix queue.

It is, as most reviewers wrote, a powerful film. Surprisingly, to me at least, the parts on the ground - where the FAA and military trackers try to figure out what's going on the morning of 9/11 - are as gripping as the bits on the plane. In fact, an entire film just focusing on the ground forces figuring out what's going on could probably be made. Still, what choked me up the most was the scenes of passengers calling their loved ones moments before they knew they were going to die.

Greengrass's decision to tell the story in real time, with largely unknown actors (and, in some cases, the actual people involved), reinforces the everyday nature of the day and the everyman qualities of those involved. Unlike the typical disaster flick, we learn just about nothing about the passengers on the plane (which, as Roger Ebert points out, is exactly what we would have known about them had we been on the plane.

One important thing to keep in mind, however, about United 93 is that it is a work of historical fiction. Not in the way the conspiracy theory jackasses in the IMDB comment say (none of it really happened, the plane landed in Cleveland, etc.). But in the details that lend the story much of its dramatic weight. Aside from the basics - the plane was hijacked, the passengers fought back, and the plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field. It is not a documentary, even though it sometimes feels like it.

And that was before lunch.

After lunch, I finally took the time to work through Akira Kurosawa's 3.5 hours epic The Seven Samurai. The girlfriend got me the new super-duper Criterion Collection version of the film, with the movie and extras spread out across three discs. It includes a restored print that looks beautiful, for a black and white flick made in 1954. The movie tells the story of a small village besieged by bandits that recruits seven ronin (samurais without masters) to protect them. Sound familiar? It was remade for American audiences in The Magnificent Seven (cue theme music!). It is a truly epic flim and very operatic in a way - lots of sacrifice. Not everyone is dead in the end, but nobody really comes through the fight unscathed. Not the emotional impact of United 93, to be sure, but a brilliant example of a filmmaker at the height of his craft.