The Hamburg Cell (2004)
Acorn DVD (region 1)
d. Antonia Bird; pr. Finola Dwyer; scr. Ronan Bennett, Alice Perman; ph. Florian Hoffmeister; m. Paul Conboy, Adrian Corker, Adrian Maral; ed. St. John O'Rorke; cast. Karim Saleh, Adnan Maral, Kamel Boutros, Agni Scott, Omar Berdouni (106 mins)
The Hamburg Cell pre-dates United 93 in being the first film on terrorism made during the post 9-11 War on Terror. A telemovie, it explores the lives of several of the 9-11 hijackers as they live their lives as Muslim students prior to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. After a brief showing at the Edinburgh film festival, the film was “dumped” to television screenings (first by the UK’s Channel 4) and all discussion of releasing the film theatrically in the USA as the first post 9-11 terrorist movie was abandoned (that honour going to United 93 some two years later). Considered a non-judgemental look at the events of 9-11 and the plight of modern Westernized Muslim youth, the film was shown to much heated discussion at the 2004 Dubai International Film Festival.
Concentrating on one representative 9-11 terrorist, Ziad Jarrah, The Hamburg Cell is an essentially humanist view of the pressures affecting young muslims in Europe, specifically appeals to Islamic religious duty as opposed to the ways of the West, hence a more devout Muslim makes a snide remark about the supposed good Muslim Jarrah enjoying pre-marital sex with his girlfriend, something condemned by hardline Islam. Subsequently, as a profile of real terrorists, The Hamburg Cell challenges the dehumanization of the Bush War on Terror policy by humanizing the terrorists not as “evil” but as empathetic human beings drawn to extremist causes by reasons this film contextualizes as reasonable and understandable in the given circumstances. Thus, The Hamburg Cell focuses on how one young man fell into the cycle of Islamic Jihadist rhetoric in order to be a “good muslim”, an ideal that all with his religious background are under pressure to be, especially when surrounded by European “decadence” and the political rhetoric of the struggle against the Zionist Israeli imperative and its American sponsors.
Religious commitment has the power to transform human lives, even if in the end it becomes monstrous in its transformation of the individual into the terrorist mass-murder: yet, although religion itself may be to blame for this impetus towards terrorism it is Jarrah’s expressed desire that “I want my life to count for something” that indicates the sense of helpless desperation that leads young men to seek guidance in religion. Yet, once they surrender to religious decree, they are at the mercy of those fanatics who claim God’s (or Allah’s) authority for their monstrously inhumane actions. Indeed, it is that gulf between religious conviction and inhumane mass murder that obsesses The Hamburg Cell’s style of contemplative behaviourist observation.
Significantly, The Hamburg Cell gives due attention to the terrorist cause beyond the level of rhetoric, exploring the motivation for terrorism as a fight against the dehumanization, humiliation and domination of the Islamic world by the US and its interests, both oil economy and Judeo-Christian driven. The defence of Islam is thus considered a duty, with all Americans legitimate targets by virtue of the democratic process whereby the government represents, and is elected by, the people. The subtext of American democracy making all Americans complicit in the foreign policy actions of its government remains sub-textual here, though is important to note considering this was exactly the suggestion that the Bush government labelling as unpatriotic and treasonous in their reductionist “with us or against us” rhetoric. Still, it is Islamic Patriarchal pressure that bears upon such as Ziad Jarrah and Muhammad Atta, forcing them to live up to ideals which demand their deaths as “martyrs”.
The Hamburg Cell relates the day to day activities of the key 9-11 hijackers whose names and actions in Europe were reported extensively in the media following 9-11. It is these people’s religious dedication, over and above any political indoctrination (which is here elided over somewhat), that perhaps seals their fate in history. But still, it is the enigmatic humanization of Jarrah that dominates The Hamburg Cell: a man who deeply loves his wife (though argues with her over her responsibility to Islam – urging her to dress in more traditional, covering robes where she prefers the freedom of Western women) but is ready to abandon her for what he sees as a higher calling – martyrdom. Here, the film is telling in its suggestion that the ideology of martyrdom allows Islamic youth angered over the US’ interference in their right to self-determination in their own lands the opportunity for self-aggrandizement through terrorist actions, seen not as terrorism but as Jihad.
The final stages of behaviourist ritual in the lead-up to 9-11, particularly the notion of spiritual preparedness and bodily cleansing, are well developed, a similar attention to the rituals of the suicide bomber infiltrating the earlier The Siege. Likewise, the final minutae of preparation are taken from the exact proscriptions laid down by Atta in his final letter, again publicized to much disbelief and condemnation by the American press following 9-11. The final stages of the intrigue surrounding the lead-up to 9-11 segue the film into political thriller terrain as The Hamburg Cell takes on such traditional terrorist themes as the will to power and the ursurping of the right to self-determination and re-stages them in relation to 9-11. The result is perhaps the first attempt to use the terrorist subgenre as a means of cultural, social and political comment on not only the events of 9-11 but the events leading up to it as well as the climate of the War on Terror that followed it.
Wider Screenings DVD Attractions Trailer
(courtesy of YouTube embedded video)