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When Will a Great 9/11 Film Be Made? by Doniphan Blair
IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN—9/11—
and 12 years makes for a calendric cycle as suitable for the heavens as the digital ten is representative of the human body.
Pretty much all that can be said about 9/11 has been said, right—or has it? Certainly, the great 9/11 movie has not been made. While the risk taking of the radical Islamists has reaped significant rewards, the same cannot be said of cinema.
The only film I saw that delved deeply into the subject was the unwieldy-titled "11'09"01 September 11" (2002), a compilation of 11 shorts, all 11 minutes, 9 seconds and one frame long, hence the title as well as the trope, which was devised by French producer Alain Brigand.
By filmmakers from all over the world, it included Sean Penn's romantic, Proust-like piece starring the late Ernest Borgnine. While he mourns over a previously-diseased beloved, looking longingly at her dress laid on a bed, the attack is referenced only at the end by a shadow sliding across the room.
Samira Makhmalbaf, of the fantastic Iranian Makhmalbaf family of filmmakers, contributed a touching investigation into what Afghan school children thought about the attacks and Alejandro González Iñárritu and Mira Nair did similarly subtle and heart-felt stories.
Ken Loach won the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Short at the 2002 Venice International for his contribution which referenced the 9/11/1973 overthrow of Allende, in Chile, hence bringing in American imperial complicity.
Where is a movie with Muhammad Atta prepping for the attacks by chain smoking and jerking off to Internet porn? Or Danny Mohammed, an Egyptian-American day trader in a closet on the 92 floor of the South Twin Tower having phone sex with his bride-to-be in Kuwait?
Not to be crass but the only cure for big catastrophe is either big art or war, which can be considered "philosophical discussions by other means," to rephrase Clausewitz. Since we've had the latter for the last 12-year cycle, perhaps its time to try the other.
Chris Morris' "Four Lions" (2010) took a laudable crack at a comedy about suicide bombing with his insightful roast of five would-be jihadists and the clueless police who pursued them.
The deadly serious "Paradise Now" (2005), masterfully directed by the Palestinian Hany Abu-Assad, brought Sergio Leone-like structuralism to a well-rounded story of two Palestinians preparing and fretting over a suicide attack in Israel. It won both a Golden Globe and death threats for its Israeli producer Bero Beyer.
But 12 years is evidently too soon for a completely irreverent, over-the-top, no-holds-barred narrative—except of course from the conspiracy theorists. Alas, their great achievement, "Loose Change" (2005-09), is so bombastic and overblown it suggests even its director, Dylan Avery, didn't take it seriously, at least subconsciously.
Something is needed in the vein of the equal opportunity insulting of the Axis of Evil group of four Middle Eastern-American comedians Ahmed Ahmed, Maz Jobrani, Aron Kader and Dean Abeidallah. Unfortunately, after doing a great Comedy Central special in 2007, including a performance attended by King Abdullah II of Jordan—who loved them—they broke up in 2011.
At CineSource, we have tried to argue for similar themes to be explored in stories about Oakland, see the Oakland Stammer WoManifesto.
Although its hard to fathom what 9/11 felt like in Manhattan, where the far downtown was first covered with dust, then missing persons posters and finally a profound sense of injury, in Oakland we have honed our chops on a complex environment that includes horrific murders and resplendent redwoods, sometimes in the same afternoon walk.
At any rate, after 12 years, it's time we moved beyond the pleasantries or prescriptions of political correctness to deep, penetrating truth telling. Indeed, the only way to move the minds of enough of our fellows to offset the ongoing need for war, both here and in the Middle East, is by big art of which movies are the biggest.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, filmmaker, graphic designer and fine artist living in Oakland and he can be reached .