31 January, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Before the review, a rant. (Skip to the next paragraph if you must.) When going to the cinema in London, the audience must watch 20 minutes of advertisements (I timed it!). Not previews, but ads, like the ones you see on TV only much longer. (Note to Orange: Your mobile phone commercials, all nine million of them, are extremely annoying and I will never purchase any of your products as a result.) Even in the U.S., people are not subjected to this form of captive advertising, so you know this is bad. I considered going to the film 20-30 minutes late, but then it’s dark and you can’t even see where to sit! Also, the public service announcements are unnecessarily graphic. One of them, with the theme Slow Down, focuses on the insane way people in London drive. As someone who has almost been run over countless times, I think this is an important message. But do we really need to see a motorcyclist splattered all over someone’s windscreen? No. Likewise, a PSA about the possibility that a rapist might be driving an unlicensed minicab is important, but do we need to see an innocent passenger being raped? No.

By the time these advertisements conclude, I already have to pee! Going to the cinema in any big city is a hassle and it’s not wise for the chains to antagonize the few remaining customers they have left.

Okay, now on to Munich. I’ve wanted to see this movie for a while and was glad when it finally opened here on Friday. I have to admit that I was skeptical, because post-Schindler’s List, I think Steven Spielberg has started to take himself way too seriously. I mean, dude, you directed E.T. and Jaws, so stop trying to save humanity. That said, I thought Munich was a very powerful film. I think it’s a must-see for anyone who is interested in the issues of the day: Terrorism, religious extremism, national security, the fast-approaching apocalypse. And if you’re not interested in these things, what’s up with that?

If you don’t know much about the events that inspired Munich, I suggest doing a little Internet research if you’re going to see the film. I only knew that at the 1972 Olympics, 11 members of the Israeli team were massacred by Palestinian terrorists. I wish I had known more before I went. The film portrays these horrific events in an artistic and disjointed way, leaving the uneducated viewer a bit confused about how things unfolded. I would have preferred a more straightforward, documentary-style approach to this part of the film.

Munich is first and foremost a thriller, an action movie filled with enough car chases and explosions to satisfy those uninterested in politics. It is extremely violent and bloody throughout. The plot centers on an Israeli assassination squad sent to Europe to kill the Palestinian masterminds of Munich one by one. (They do not manage to kill all of them. Click here.) The cast is led by actor Eric Bana, who played the Hulk. He does an excellent job of conveying all of the conflicting emotions a person in his place would feel. He is joined by Daniel Craig, the new James Bond. (I’ve never seen a Bond film and don’t plan to, but Craig does not seem like a good fit. He’s blond and his eyes are glassy and weird, like serial killer eyes.) Another main cast member, Mathieu Kassovitz, played Amelie’s boyfriend!

As a Jewish filmmaker (and someone very active in Jewish causes), Spielberg has obviously worked hard to make Munich a movie that explores the messiness and morality of violence on all sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As such, he has set himself up for criticism. Munich has only done average business so far at the American box office and may not even get a best picture nod at the Oscars, which would be surprising. One reason for the low box office is apparently the right-wing pundits in the U.S. who attacked the film (probably without seeing it) as being too kind to the Palestinians and too hard on the Israelis. Since many people in George W. Bush’s America are incapable of any kind of nuanced thought, this is not surprising. If you want to explore the idea that violence begets violence, you’re a terrorist sympathizer. Everything should be strictly black and white, good vs. evil.

How anyone can argue that Munich paints Palestinian terrorists in a positive light is beyond me. Sure, these men are shown as humans, with families, with jobs. But terrorists are human! They don’t have claws and fangs and look like monsters. They look like everyone else, as do murderers and rapists and priests who molest children. That’s what makes it so chilling when an average member of society puts a bomb in his backpack and blows up the London Underground.

Others complain that some members of the Israeli assassination squad actually feel conflicted about what they are doing, rather than acting like robotic killers without souls. The film’s poster, pictured above, really enrages them. At the beginning of Munich, as they carry out assassinations across Europe, from Paris to Rome to Athens, they don’t have any qualms. In fact, after the first killing, they celebrate. But some of the men come to realize they are fighting a losing battle when the terrorists they kill are replaced by other terrorists immediately. They begin to question what they’re doing when they realize they are being hunted themselves, that they and their families will probably never be safe again in their lives. And spending all of your time planning ways to kill people, while being separated from your loved ones for years, is probably not great for a person’s mental health. These seem like perfectly normal, human reactions to me.

There is a difference between ideology and art, a concept that many of the pundits criticizing the film are too hysterical to understand. Munich raises a lot of thorny issues, but the audience is left to figure out the meaning for themselves. The film, which closes on a shot of the World Trade Center (RIP), offers no answers, just raises questions. It’s often a muddled and confusing and maddening film. It’s a big mess, just like the conflict in the Middle East.

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