There is no doubt that Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest story tellers of the modern cinema. He has given us bigger than life characters in ET and JURRASIC PARK. With Munich he has attempted a politico terrorism drama. The film has tried to take slices of the mindset of the people of both sides of the game and shown the human side of the conflict that seems to be a never ending story.
Vengeance
Spielberg started to shoot in the June 2004 but he stopped abruptly. The tone of the movie was set to hunt down the terrorists. Steven thought it might not go well with the terrorist groups. He modified the script. No winners. It was widely thought that the movie is based on a much discredited book by George Jonas called Vengeance. While making the film Steven came out with a statement that it was not based on it. The credits of the film mention that it is based on Vengeance!!
Who was calling the shots?
Many major decisions come from the own life experiences of the people making those history changing choices. In their decision making these factors would have crept up with or without their realising this. Golda Meir was living with her own prejudices that resulted in some of the decisions her country made. In reaching those seemingly only solutions at the time, it seems many compromises were made and this is what Munich is all about.
Munich also shows us that there is no guarantee that people who have family and kids will necessarily have respect for that institution of marriage and family. It is only when the barrel is facing them or their dear ones that the facts really sink in. The story moves around the sad reflection of how two groups of people, each with that desperate human longing for creating a home state, can look past their similarities and go for the destruction of the other.
The look of 1970s
Spielberg has managed the look of 1970s extremely well. The film opens in the early morning hours of September 5, 1972 as eight members of the Palestinian Black September group, disguised as athletes, are let into the Munich Olympic Village compound by a group of American athletes!!
The men break into the rooms of eleven sleeping Israeli players and take them hostage after killing two. From there on the rumours fly and both sides seem to be winning alternatively. Such rumours were short livid when all hostages are murdered and five terrorists are killed by Germans. Germans do not negotiate with terrorists. That was and still is their official position!!
After the bloodshed by the group called Black September the response from the Israel had to be decisive and fitting to the act that the whole world had watched holding their hearts. The media followed the proceedings and covered the incident very closely. The terrorism had finally arrived in our lives.
The beginning
Watching the tragedy as it unfolds are Avner (Eric Bana), an Israeli intelligence officer, and his pregnant wife Daphna (Ayelet Zurer). Avner is soon presented with an opportunity to avenge the deaths of the eleven athletes. He and his team of four will ensure that justice is carried out. Their success will not be acknowledged and their death in the process will not even be mourned.
To accomplish their mission, Avner and his team traverse across Europe, hunting down the people on their list. One of their cardinal rules is to keep innocents out of the line of fire, as we see in the second killing when they abort a mission when the target’s young daughter answers the phone rigged to explode. Eventually, this rule becomes secondary, and in comes indiscriminate killings.
The maturity of the director
Before the film comes to its predictable end we are left to ponder if most of the listed targets had any direct dealing with the Munich massacre in the first place. This eventual shift in perception is all the more challenging because the film takes an unbiased view of the larger conflict surrounding this specific episode. As the film progresses, we see each target participating in their lives. One is an intelligent writer. Another is a family man, and because of the initial scare of his daughter accidentally being killed, we see him as a father. The team morale slowly begins to transition from a sense of justice to a more cynical and personal decline. At first, Avner blindly follows orders. He has a list; these men must die. There’s no question about the validity of the decision. Avner is our window into the personal conflict befalling the crew. Eric Bana portrays his moral decay with precision.
Eric Bana has come of age in this film. From his early beginnings from the TV shows like fast forward where he mimicked film and political personalities he has come a long way. Our own Shekhar Suman still has a hope. If Eric Bana can do it so can he!
Pause and think
We will be erring in our judgement if we go with the flow of the movie. The presentation has disguised the fact that the majority of the culprits did not end the way the film depicts. It is said that many escaped and led a full life. Some died due to natural causes but some did perish to their hunter’s bullets.
Good point is that Munich has no easy answers and is not looking for any. Spielberg is often known for finding happy or at least hopeful endings to his films no matter what has come before, and so it is fascinating that with Munich the director makes no such move. There is no shred of hope, because there are no winners in this situation. As one character says, ’’There is no peace at the end of this, ’’ and that--is more than likely the truth.
Perceptions and Facts
Following are some of the facts the director has played with. It shows the power of the medium how it can create perceptions or on the contrary change them. Are these perceptions real?
Golda Meir
We all know her to be an iron lady. In the film she is shown to be wavering and indecisive. Real life Golda Meir was more confident and would have gone for a revenge attack come what may.
CIA
Have been shown to be paying the money to terrorists for not targeting Americans but in actual fact the terrorists have always dealt very harshly when they have their laid their hands on American people. There are numerous examples of this but if Spielberg has shown it in his film it may be based on some smoke.
Terrorists
To create sympathy for the terrorists or for their planners - they are shown to have cute little piano playing daughters who are getting orphaned due to the killings by the hunters but the sympathy card was not played in the movie for the kids of the athletes and their suffering.
Innocent Killings
Real life Mossad agents went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. In the movie they start well on those guidelines but soon they do what came easily to them. Real life agents did kill one innocent victim by mistake and the agent responsible was tried and jailed.
Mossad agents
In the movie they question the killings saying that the ones they are killing will be replaced by similar people so it made no sense in killing them. This is a stupid logic because it can be applied to any situation when a person is reluctant to do any work. This is certainly not the way Mossad agent will function.
The Initial killing footage
Initial footage of the Munich has been used extensively and some times in very bizarre situations such as when the hero is in bed with wife.
A good overall film and Spielberg, despite the compromises, tries to make it a film worth a watch. He succeeds.
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