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Previews and write-ups paint Munich as a quasi-fictional
chronicle of the Israeli response to Palestinean terrorism at the 1972 Munich
games. While the idea of a rendering of this piece of history by director
Steven Spielberg, famous for his Holocaust film Schindler's List,
seems to have merit on its own, the movie is driven much less than one might
think by its setting and plot. Like any Spielberg film, Munich's
plot is filled with twists, turns, and troubling revelations. However,
characters, camerawork, and soundtrack sweep over the storyline, leaving
behind a beautiful, tortured, maddening impressionism.
As Israel recoils from "Black September," a terrorist massacre
of 11 of its athletes at the 1972 Olympic games, the prime minister Golda
Mier calls on a young man, soon-to-be-father Avner (Eric Bana) to avenge the
deaths of the victims. Avner meets three other operatives, each with a lethal
specialty, and they set off for Europe.
This team of assassins instantly drew me in. Each member is distinctly
individual and human, rather than the stereotyped ensemble casts one often
finds in action films. Their banter reminds one of what they really are-not
secret agents, but men ripped from their lives to serve their country. Though
their conversations have an expected undercurrent of ambivalence, fear,
and occasional fatalism, the boys inside them also emerge from time to time,
faces brightening at the prospect of a meticulously executed plan or
unnecessarily complex gadget.
Though the ensemble work is good, Avner is the star player, the focus of
the increasing madness and terror in which the group finds itself. As
assassinations push closer to failure, and a quirky information dealer
alludes that there might be more going on politically than meets the eye,
Avner begins to crack, the pointless violence and likely tragic end of the
situation dawning on him. Avner is such a likeable guy, a bit like Tom
Hanks in a young Adrian Brody's body, that we start to crack with him,
poignant, touching scenes with his wife and child only widening the
fissures.
"Creeping" appropriately describes this film's tension. The
pacing seems a little languid, but doesn't drag. Apprehension mounts
exponentially, starting slow and accelerating after troubling questions about
the team's situation arise. Spielberg cuts his action sequences masterfully:
music, camera pans, and quick back-and-forth come together in a frenzy more
intense than that achieved with big explosions and gunfire.
In any film treating the Israeli-Palestinean conflict, one expects
political commentary. However, preaching is refreshingly absent-Spielberg
presents articulate advocates for both sides, all passionate, pained, and
human. A Palestinian resistance fighter yearns for a place his people call
home; Israel's prime minister knows that there is a time at which every
country needs to make a stand. As far as Avner's Palestinian targets go,
though he is briefed on their records of atrocities, when we actually see
them, they appear to be doing no more than living out their lives. One helps
his daughter with her piano; another buys a loaf of bread from a smiling
baker. We're left to wonder, as the plot languidly builds to its overpowering
climax, exactly how justified Avner's mission is.
Munich gave me new faith in the film medium. Spielberg loves
film grain, and makes us love it too. Whether softening the sunny lines of a
rural French estate, or bringing out the colors in a damp, moonlit
cobblestone road, film, like everything else in the movie, refuses to be
defined. This isn't television, jumping from one color value to another,
smoothing over contrast. Spielberg is comfortable with ambiguity, and the
high-saturation film he uses makes the picture feel rich and whole.
Munich is a movie, and proud of it-its artful composition, strong
talent, and historical gravity make it well worth seeing on a big screen.
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