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Review of the Movie ‘Munich’
by Gaetana Caldwell-Smith / March 2006 issue of Socialist
Action newspaper
The 1972 Summer
Olympics had just begun when a group of Palestinian terrorists known as
Black September kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes from the Olympic Village, in
Munich, Germany, and murdered them. The incident was a reaction against the
Israeli government’s atrocities against Palestinian Arabs.
Steven
Speilberg’s fictionalization of the Black September disaster is the subject
of his film, “Munich,” loosely based on George Jonas’ controversial
book, “Vengeance.” The film was nominated for five Academy Awards;
including Best Picture and Best Director.
In
the film, Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Mier, played by Lynn Cohen,
clandestinely gathers in her cozy living room an assassination team headed
up by Avner (Eric Bana), a Mossad intelligence officer. Speaking with
weary resignation, she says that she has no other choice than to
acknowledge that the Palestinians “want to destroy us. We must show them
we’re strong.”
The
team’s not impossible but costly—physically, morally, and
materially—mission was to kill everyone behind the brutal act at the
Olympics.
“Munich”
is dark, gruesome, complex, and heart-stopping. Spielberg and writers Eric
Roth and Tony Kushner fleshed out the characters playing the assassins so
that we allow them the familiarity we give to a relative or friend.
Geoffrey Rush plays Efraim, the organizer and Mossad officer, like the
back-office bean-counter you hate, who complains about the cost of
everything. Hans, the bomb-maker (Mathieu Kassovitz), is the typical nerd
with his slight build and whiny voice; his real job is toymaking.
The
men go about their work methodically; in fact, Avner lacks expression. He
appears grounded, rational, and pragmatic, which is what one wants in a
leader. They kill men who look just like them—a middle-aged poet, a
musician whose pre-adolescent daughter is almost blown up with him when
she runs back into the house to retrieve her schoolwork.
The
men wrangle amongst themselves over which is more dependable and effective,
guns or bombs; deciding that bombs are “preferable.”
At
some point the team begins to doubt the validity of their mission, and Carl
says, “How do you think we got the land? By being nice?” The team travels
all over Europe searching for people from names given to Avner by his
contact, Louis (Matthieu Almaric), a mysterious, unassuming man whose
family business is people-finding for a price.
Louis
also arranges their safe-houses, one of which ends up being not so safe.
The team is attacked by fanatic idealists of another stripe, in a case of
mistaken identity. Soon, Avner is totally paranoid himself. He slashes open
his mattress, breaks down his telephone, tears paneling from walls and
floors, and basically goes berserk, looking for bombs.
Throughout,
in archival film clips and fictional re-creation, Spielberg subjects us to
Avner’s relentless flashbacks of the kidnapping and killing of
the athletes, once even when he is safe in London, making love to his wife.
Though
Spielberg raises questions, he takes no moral high ground in “Munich.” Some
viewers may feel confused or affronted, but these emotions should not add
up to a denouncement of the film, as many pro-Israel commentators and
officials have done. Spielberg respects his audience’s intelligence.
He lays it out as though saying: Here it is, this is what happened, make up
your own minds.
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