Munich
Written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Universal/DreamWorks
2005
Rating:


In the chapter titled "Papering the Cracks: Fantasy and Ideology in the Reagan Era" from his seminal work of film criticism "Hollywood From Vietnam to Reagan," Robin Wood bemoans the fact that "the crisis in ideological confidence of the 70s visible on all levels of American culture and variously enacted in Hollywood…has been forgotten."

Blame for Hollywood's shift from radical works like "Easy Rider" and "Mean Streets" to safer, more palatable films is placed squarely on the shoulders of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, who popularized the fantasy and capitalistic impulses of Hollywood with their blockbusters "Star Wars" and "Jaws." In such "Reaganite entertainment," "reassurance is the keynote," and no one peddles reassurance quite like Spielberg. Wood believes that Spielberg's films carry a personal need to blanket the disturbance of reality to the point where that disturbance is "almost obliterated."

"Munich" must be considered an anomaly in the Spielberg canon, then, for it is a work of vital disturbance, one that tears the paper off the cracks.

More than any other narrative film in 2005, even more so than David Cronenberg's brilliant "A History of Violence," "Munich" examines the thrill of committing — and watching — a violent act of retribution, and the emotional fallout that comes from such blood-spilling.

Spielberg's film begins with a fireworks display of editing and tightly compressed tension, briefly showing the act of terrorism that took place during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Palestinian terrorists storm the Olympic village and take Israeli athletes hostage in exchange for the release of imprisoned Muslims. Spielberg and editor Michael Kahn cut between a frenzied reenactment of the events, journalists reporting on what transpires and actual archival footage, resulting in what must be Spielberg's most effective use of montage and blurring of reality. When the German police and military intervene to save the hostages, disaster strikes, and all 11 of the athletes end up dead.

Outraged, but also under public pressure from compromising with terrorists in the past, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) decides that, "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." Meir orders the creation of a secret ops team not officially connected to the Israeli government that will seek out and assassinate those responsible for the planning of Munich. "To get peace," Meir says, "we must show them we're strong."

Avner (Eric Bana) is selected to head the operation. An apparently unmemorable former bodyguard for Meir, Avner is willing to abandon his pregnant wife and take up the call of his country because he is a patriot and, one suspects, eager to escape the shadow of his hero father.

The team, known as the "Wrath of God" and the "Sword of Gideon," is a collection of largely European Jews: clean-up man Carl (Ciaran Hinds), Belgian bomb-maker Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), German document forger Hans (Hanns Zischler) and South African driver Steve (Daniel Craig). "Munich" delves into the details of such work that de-romanticizes the glamour of "Mission: Impossible" and James Bond. In one scene, Robert is given corroding explosives and worries that the bomb won't go off as expected, a problem Hollywood spies never face.

This is a film where murder is never easy in technical or spiritual terms. The first murder of one of the Munich conspirators, a man who has recently translated "The Arabian Nights" into Italian, is a clumsy mess with echoes of the murder of Sen. Thomas Jordan (John McGiver) in the original "The Manchurian Candidate."

The scene is somewhat played for laughs and the team drinks beer, laughs and dances afterwards, but Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner are careful to show that murder isn't a real cause for celebration. The translator is carrying groceries when he's killed, and a bottle of milk is shattered as he falls dead. His blood slowly mingles with the milk, a wonderful image that symbolizes the darkness encroaching on Avner's soul and a literal-minded metaphor that shows what he's doing isn't kosher. The bloodied milk is a foreshadowing of how corrupted these men will become: as a bodyguard, Avner protected lives and now takes them; Robert once disarmed bombs and now makes them.

Like Cronenberg in "A History of Violence," Spielberg dares his viewers to experience the thrill of vengeance killing, only and to condemn them for feeling such excitement. Spielberg stages each action set piece with such verve and originality that one could swear this is the work of a reinvigorated Francis Ford Coppola or William Friedkin. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's camera, which usually captures images in a way that's too glossy and liquid, here has the grit of "The French Connection." These are titillating action scenes to be sure.

Yet Spielberg films the actual carnage done to a human body when it's struck by a bullet or destroyed by a bomb. He then pushes his film further, exposing the hypocrisy of the audience and of the assassinations by showing the Munich terrorism in flashback: what the Palestinians and Israelis are doing isn't so different, but the audience is horrified by what happens in Munich while cheering on Avner. As members of Avner's team begin to be killed off one-by-one like Elliot Ness' Untouchables, revenge against a rival assassin seems to be called for. But this act of arguably justifiable killing is one the film's ugliest scenes, underlining the fact that violence is never an easy thing.

Spielberg's boldest feat is what he ultimately has to say about government-sanctioned revenge. There is no reassurance in "Munich." The film's final shot of 1980s Brooklyn shows the Twin Towers still standing in the distance. The connection between Israel's response to Munich and America's response to 9/11 is clear. Spielberg doesn't deny that a reprisal of some kind is necessary, but he also acknowledges that violence only begets more violence. Spielberg finally isn't presumptuous enough to have a plain answer; his daring response is a plaintive, "I don't know."

Posted Thursday, January 12, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/munich