Okay, maybe it’s not too soon after all
I saw “World Trade Center” today, and that’s the first amazing thing to report about it. Because I personally thought it was too soon for this film, and after seeing some wrenching previews, there’s no way I was going to watch it. It was all still so raw, especially in the week when another horrific terrorist plot was thwarted before it could massacre hundreds or thousands more innocent people.
But I’ve seen some surprisingly good reviews of it, and they told a tender story about how Oliver Stone handled this. So I went. And I was incredibly moved, of course to tears, several times in the film, but moved also to the core of my heart.
This film is about the tremendous triumph of the human spirit. Love is stronger than evil. That message permeated this entire drama, which is entirely the true story of two New York Port Authority Police Department Officers trapped in the concrete and steel rubble of the collapsed towers. They represent all that is good and true about honor, valor and duty. But most importantly, faith and family.
As the threat of death closed in on them, one of them urgently called out the Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer. The other had a vision of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Toward the end of the movie, as the sergeant was whisked to the emergency room, he managed to speak the most important thing he could say to his loving wife: “You kept me alive!”
Another thing. The quiet, purposeful, resolute Marine who spoke little in this film embodied what is great about America. He saw the attack, went to church to pray, felt called to serve a duty no one asked him to do, re-entering military service to do it, and went straight to Ground Zero to save lives. When he found the two officers hanging onto life, he gave them the simple relief of hearing: “I’m a Marine. You are my mission.”
This film is about hope. It couldn’t have come at a better time.
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Sheila,
My husband and I went to the movie yesterday afternoon also. We go to very few movies and I had heard Michael Medved’s review the other day and we always like what he likes, so we went. It was very good. I was really amazed at the way they really didn’t know how bad it was even though they were there. They were as confused as we were observing it from far away–I had a real disconnect and I am still a bit perturbed about.
At the time 9-11 happened I was working for a law firm and they didn’t even try to inform us. I had to get all the news from internet reports and my husband calling me. I would have thought attorney’s would have been a little more interested and involved than they were–but then understanding how self-involved they tend to be–maybe it actually makes sense 🙂
I wanted to go home so badly and pick up the kids at their various schools and assess what had happened with my family and not strangers…
I didn’t have any personal emotion until I was driving home and heard on the radio that the Russian people were leaving flowers and crying at the American embassy. I cried and cried. I thought it was so amazing and beautiful that they felt bad for us considering I grew up in the cold war–I graduated in 1982…so as a child it was always in our minds we could be bombed any time.
I liked the film’s simplicity. I liked how it really came down to the personal and how the families reacted. That is what everything comes down to so it was truthful.
I also loved seeing the Sacred Heart of Jesus visions. It made me cry and yes, it was so hopeful to see that Our Lord was there for that officer–which of course translates to Our Lord being there for all of us.
These are good movies to see. So much of the media tries to get us away from our emotions and these types of films put us back in touch–and patriotic in the sense that Americans are so American. I can see myself in them even though I live in Minnesota and they live in New York.
Thank you for your work on the radio and we will miss you!
God Bless