Twenty years on from the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, and the events of that fateful September day still cast a shadow across the globe. Yet Copilot takes a more intimate approach in its fictionalised narrative, focusing on five years in the life of one of the Lebanese terrorists — here named Saeed (Roger Azar), yet clearly based on United 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah.
More specifically, the screenplay (co-written by director Anne Zohra Berrached and Stefanie Misrahi) plots events through the experiences of Saeed’s Turkish-born girlfriend (later wife) Asli (based on Ziad’s partner, Aysel Sengun). Played with charm and poise by Canan Kir, Asli is so enamoured with Saeed, and so seduced by their intense bond, that she defies the aggressive racist objections of her mother to date him, and later marry him in secret. As their relationship evolves across the years (each being marked by its own on-screen title card), it becomes clear that Saeed is developing fundamentalist tendencies.
A beautifully made, sensitive study of the overwhelming, destabilising influence of love.
The film doesn’t present this as some kind of raving religious epiphany but a slow drip of intrusive ideas and small behavioural changes, which Asli is — initially, at least — able to overlook, unable (and perhaps unwilling) to believe that the idealistic, good-natured boy she fell in love with could be capable of such atrocities. If she is complicit in his actions, it’s through naivety alone.
Cinematographer Christopher Aoun leans into the dichotomous nature of Asli’s life: the colourful, euphoric highs of genuine emotional connection — neatly encapsulated in one lovely fantasy sequence, early in their relationship, which sees them walking hand-in-hand along a street pretending to pilot a plane, and then literally soaring from the ground — and the sombre shadows of her loneliness and confusion as she begins to realise that Saeed isn’t the man she believed him to be. As seen squarely through her eyes, Copilot is not so much an exploration of the devastating impact of radicalism — which notably all takes place off screen — as a beautifully made, sensitive study of the overwhelming, destabilising influence of love.