Paul Greengrass' United 93 was the best movie of the year (so far; I'm seeing Cultural Learnings tonight, and have high hopes), and it inspired my most carefully-crafted review. But Martin Amis' review is better.
Coincidentally, we both cite Philip Larkin poems to reach our verdicts. I chose "Aubade," which concerns the triumph of death. He picks "An Arundel Tomb," the exact converse; it is about the endurance of something after death. ("...to prove Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love.") Perhaps our choices reflect our temperments; perhaps he is simply older and wiser about what matters.
Greengrass doesn't spare us — but he is able to spare us something. When was the last time you boarded an aeroplane that had no children in it? United 93 was evidently such a flight. And if it hadn't been? It is hard to defend your imagination from such a possibility. "What's happening? You see, my child, the men with the bloodstained knives think that if they kill themselves, and all of us, they will go at once to a paradise of women and wine." No, I suppose you would just tell him or her that you loved them, and he or she would tell you that they loved you too. Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black. We can't tell if it will survive us. But we can be sure that it's the last thing to go.Posted by mesh at November 3, 2006 06:50 PM | TrackBack