I love cinema. One of my favorite genres is a political thriller. Some of my favorite films from this genre are Traffic, The Manchurian Candidate, The Battle of Algiers, and Z. I am proud to say that I am going to add one more film in that list. This film is directed by one of the world’s most prolific filmmaker of last three decades with the resume of classic films like Duel, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones Series, The Color Purple, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, and Minority Report.
Steven Spielberg’s controversial political thriller Munich (2005) is inspired from equally controversial book “Vengeance”, published by the Canadian writer George Jonas. Book is based on one of the darkest moment of world’s greatest sporting event - Munich Massacre at 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.
Back Story
Black September, a Palestinian terrorist organization group, broke into the Munich Olympic village in September 1972 and took 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team athletes as hostage. Within 24 hours, all hostages and five of the eight kidnappers were killed, and three kidnappers taken into custody during an abortive rescue attempt at airport.
Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, appealed to international communities to help the Israel. Unfortunately Germans insisted that the Olympic games should continue uninterrupted, IOC President made no reference to the murdered athletes during a next day speech in a memorial service in the Olympic Stadium, and the three captured terrorists were quickly released by Germany in response to the hijacking of a Lufthansa airliner several weeks after the massacre.
The soft response from broader international community regarding Munich massacre and PLO terrorism led the Israeli public raising the questions regarding their human rights and Israeli government to conclude that they must act in their own defense. Golda Meir and the Israeli Defense Committee went back to the old biblical rule of an eye for an eye and made a decision secretly authorizing the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency to track down and eliminate the 11 terrorists suspected to have planned and executed the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich.
For next 2 years, Mossad launched controversial reprisal missions known as Operation Wrath of God, executing a number of Palestinian terrorists associated with the Munich operation in all over the Europe and Middle East.
Story
Avner (Eric Bana) is the leader of five-man team of ex-Mossad operatives including hothead trigger-man Steve, crime-scene evidence cleaner Carl, toymaker turned bomb maker Robert, and expert documents forger Hans. Team gets cut off from any direct contact with Israel and they vanishes into espionage secrecy to track down and assassinate the 11 Palestinians in Europe. Avner’s team’s only contacts are head of reprisal mission in Mossad and bank locker with full of money, which gets refilled if it ever becomes empty.
Once in Europe, Avner makes contact with information provider Louis to learn about possible locations of his targets. Avner and his team spends next 2 years wiping out their targets one by one around the world – Rome-Paris-Beirut-Athens-London. Soon the PLO targets they killed, replaced and replaced again by more powerful and dangerous PLO members. Avner starts killing replacements even though they are not in original list. Avner’s team itself gets tracked in turn by PLO assassins and hunters are becoming hunted. He soon realizes that every PLO member gets killed, there is another one waiting to take his place, and its never-ending chain.
As Avner gets deeper and deeper into espionage game, removing targets becomes more difficult and their assignment turns into nightmare. Their the day-by-day horror paranoia of killing, changing identities constantly, moving from country to country, and devoting their lives to the brutal task of vengeance takes personal toll. Soon his patriotic fervor turns into moral ambiguity. He couldn’t understand what’s right and what’ wrong. At last, he makes tough decision to stay away from vengeance job and opts for future serene life with his wife and daughter in New York.
Analysis
Munich is a multifaceted intelligent window into a secret world of decades of Israel-PLO conflicts, terrorism, reprisal, and political murders. On surface, it’s a political thriller based on real events but underneath its top layers, it’s profoundly emotional and sensitive drama.
Although Munich is all about Israel’s answer to PLO’s horrific act of Munich massacre, it’s more about Moral ambiguity faced by Israeli agents. When Avner accepts Job, he doesn’t question of righteousness of his actions. When he kills his first target, he hesitates. Once he removes one by one more targets, killing becomes routine. As PLO assassin starts targeting them and his partners are getting killed, he gets paranoid about his ethical basis of operation and later commits to his personal life over his patriotic life. That’s where Spielberg’s film successfully demonstrates that Israel has risked more than it has gained in last three decades with reprisal missions.
Munich is top-notch political thriller with excellent screenplay, efficient acting, and masterful direction. As far as acting, Eric Bana as Avner is heart and soul of the film. One of the best part about Tony Kushner‘s screenplay is even though it concentrates mainly on the Israel’s reprisal mission, it inter cuts its main story with flashbacks of re-enactment of the Munich massacre - kidnapping and killing of Israeli athletes. Another interesting moments of the movie are assassinations – first murder at apartment with point blank pistol shot in Rome, second murder with explosives in phone blows up the one section of apartment in Paris, third murder with explosives underneath bed blows up the hotel rooms in Cyprus, and another murder by throwing hand-graded bomb by sneaking into hotel room in Athens.
Many documentaries and historians who followed 1972 Munich massacre and Israel’s vengeful response are critical about Spielberg’s film and have challenged the film’s premise on factual grounds. One of the major criticisms came from the undercover Mossad agents regarding title character Avner’s moral ambiguity. They couldn’t identify themselves with the Avner and like Avner, never asked themselves whether they were right or wrong. For them taking revenge by killing terrorist involved in Munich and striking fear into the hearts of the terrorists were the main mission.
Conclusion
I understand Munich fails to differentiate between those who murder innocent athletes in their sleep and those who hunt down the murderers. I understand many Arabs and Jews didn’t like the film because of its somewhat neutral stance but I loved the film being human. I always believed in the world of harmony and world of mutual existence. May be many Palestinians think its against their PLO agendas and many Israelis think Spielberg’s film questioned Israel’s policy but as a moviegoer, Munich is electrifying espionage thriller. It’s a must see.