i watched United 93 on the Movie Channel this weekend. well, to be more exact - i endured half of it and just as the terrorists were about to make their move i frantically grabbed the remote and changed the channel. the docudrama made me sick to my stomach which is probably a testiment to how well done it was.the movie is not only about the heroes of the title flight but also a journalistic, apolitical detail of how the horror unfolded for the air traffic controllers, the military and the FAA. the hand-held camera work was brilliant. it drew the audience in - i was no longer watching but experiencing and it was terrifying. i believe the movie was supposed to be in real time which had an eerie sickening effect on me. there was something horrible in watching the realization sink in for each of the players involved. it was like a bad B-movie where you're silently screaming in your head,"don't open that door, the killer's in that room." it was gut-wrenching to know what was to come, a nightmare that i was not willing to have again. i wanted to huddle in the fetal position and weep but there was no release.
i was upset when i first heard about this movie. i thought it too soon to be sensationalized but Paul Greengrass (best known to the mainstream as the director of The Bourne Supremecy) did no such thing. the research was thorough, the families of the victims consulted, some of the people in the movie were actually playing themselves. this was a shrine he built to honour heroes that should always be remembered as such.
i have a great deal of respect for this effort and maybe one day i'll be able to finish the movie but maybe i shouldn't. i struggled with this for the rest of the weekend. images of 9-11 have scarred me. i was stunned into a stupor that day. i sat in front of the tv, unable to turn away and i sobbed. i was reacting so harshly that the guy i was living with at the time thought i actually knew someone in the World Trade Centre. i didn't but i knew the world had changed forever. till this day i've never been able to explain my reaction. i don't really understand it.
i was never an idealist. it wasn't a stretch to call me a wee bit cynical, at times, but never could i have conjoured such attrocities in my head. i couldn't stand that day, i was so sickened. i couldn't wrap my head around it and i felt broken. i felt like the whole world was broken.
here's this great homage to the real victims of the tradgedy and here i am wallowing in my pettiness. here's the question, tho - does this make me a lesser person? am i hiding behind ignorace? there was so much lost that day, why can't i just mourn forever? maybe it would be right to finish the movie and cry again but i can't quite yet.
monday morning, i woke up and turned on the morning news, like i do every day, and went about my morning routine. there was a shooting at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. i would later find out that 32 people died and the gunman killed himself. is this the highest casualty count in american school shootings? can it possibly be getting worse?
i was trying to remember how long ago the Colombine massacre was so i googled it. only 2 days have gone by and Wikipedia already lists the Columbine as the third deadliest shooting in America after the one at Virginia State and, of course, the one at Texas University in 1966.
the media has gone to town with this one. it's surreal with a larger than life antogonist and complete with a "multimedia manifesto" and its ill-timed delivery to NBC. he's a legend already. i understand the need to know, to inform, to pay tribute but i can't help feeling like the all media coverage, the strange pictures, the interactive graphics, the videos, the blog, the everything is over the top and effictively desensitizing the masses in the name of educating the ignorant.
is this insensitive? yes, it is. but so is slowing down on the highway and craning your neck around to catch a glimpse of that accident and we've all done that so let's just bloody well get over that one now. we're so inundated with images of cars crashing and flipping and exploding that when we drive by it we're somehow detached, safely cocooned by a pane of glass, in our cars, listening to our tunes, going about our business. it's just another image and it's fascinating in a morbid kind of way.
there's so much conversation about the violence in movies and videogames but what about being pummeled by news clips everywhere you turn? it's one thing to report the news, it's another to create a dog and pony show out of it. i'm not ranting about the coverage per se, but really more about the business of the news. it bothers me that they run commercials with teasers! "there's a sadistic killer running around in your area but we're not gonna tell you anything unless you boost our ratings by tuning in later tonight." the news is supposed to inform.
i know i'm being harsh and probably displacing my anger. i don't know why i react to the two tradgedies so differently. maybe i'm grasping for justification, some reason behind the chaos that is me.
9-11 made us hold our breath, the world was stunned into silence. Virgina Tech we all seem rabid for gossip. i somehow feel like we're being disrespectful. is it just me? is it hypocritical to be so ashamed of my inability to pay homage to one and so disapproving of the tribute to the other?
none of this makes any sense to me right now. i'm babbling about feelings i don't understand, things i can't seem to comprehend. i don't want to be ignorant but we're killing each other and ourselves and i just can't bare to look.
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