Munich

[Anonymous Joe]

I noticed alot of zoom-ins. More so then any movie released latley.

[matt35mm]

I noticed alot of zoom-ins. More so then any movie released latley.

As a 70s filmmaker himself, Spielberg recreates the 70s perfectly (sounds silly when a 20 year old says that, but while watching the movie, it's very clear that it's all very period-accurate).  The filmmaking itself is more 70s than modern, as well, and the film certainly doesn't shy away from grain.

I also feel like I should speak a little about the content of the movie, beyond just the structure and techniques that were used.

Kushner's contribution is most obvious in the big speeches that do a good job of illustrating some interesting points, but nothing new.  It's not that I feel that every movie has to contribute something new, but with this subject matter, it's hard not to be told things that weren't already fairly well known.  As good a writer as Kushner is, there is still the sense that he doesn't know how to write a movie, and Spielberg doesn't know how to direct a play.  Sometimes that actually results in something interesting, but sometimes not.

I would say that I prefered the more play-like aspects of this movie.  When people stopped to talk and make observations about the chaos around them, THAT was interesting.  When it slips into plot, though, it's... still good, but not entirely fitting.  There's also an odd Godfather element and a bizarre surrogate father relationship that don't quite fit.  I think there were certain elements chucked in there (whether or not they were true to history is besides the point) the took away from what the movie most had to offer.  This was a movie about a complicated conflict that was ripe for such interesting explorations into morally muddy areas.  Given the potential, it really only barely touches on all of that to make way for actually seeing the assassinations.

I'll say more later after more people have watched the movie though.  It's better for discussion, not for just one guy talking.

[Kal]

Definetly one of the years best... and one of Spielberg's best... or I dont know about that... but it sure made me remember what a great filmmaker he is and how much attention to detail, in every shot, every closeup, the dialogue... I thought it was perfect.


ALERT - SPOILERS!!!!!

At the end, that scene having sex with the images of the shootings... didnt quite fit for me. That I think was the only part that I really didint like of the whole movie. The rest for me was genius.

[Ravi]

I don't feel like critiquing the politics right now, but the filmmaking is great.  There are some incredibly tense scenes.  I was skeptical of the spy thriller aesthetic for this material, but it mostly felt natural.  In the beginning they carry out their mission without any remorse, but the reflection and the regret begin later on.  Whether the real assassins felt any remorse, I don't know, but in the film the progression believable.  I'm sure Kushner, Roth, and Spielberg took some liberties with the real events, some of which were mentioned in the Salon article.

Some of the dialogue was awkwardly artificial-sounding, particularly Golda Meir's.

Andyk, I felt the scene you talked about fit with the rest of the film.  The NY scenes are markedly different in tone because of how Avner changed after having done what he did, and that scene was the zenith of the events of Munich haunting him, at least within the film.

More thoughts later.

[Ravi]

http://www.slate.com/id/2133085/nav/tap2/

The History Behind Munich
Separating truth from fiction in Spielberg's movie.
By Aaron J. Klein
Posted Friday, Dec. 23, 2005, at 4:22 PM ET


Co-written by the playwright Tony Kushner and based in part on a book, Vengeance by George Jonas, that has been widely called into question, Steven Spielberg's Munich is not a documentary. Indeed, it is full of distortions and flights of fancy that would make any Israeli intelligence officer blush. Before the opening credits, Spielberg informs us that the movie was "inspired by real events"—which raises the question, where in Munich does fact end and fiction begin?

The dark event at the heart of the movie is presented starkly, accurately for the most part, and well. This is the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists held 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, which led to a botched rescue attempt and the murder of the surviving athletes (two had already been killed) by the terrorists. (The hostage crisis is inserted sequentially throughout the film.) Much is left out. For instance, it would have been nice to know that it was German incompetence—their "rescue operation" was, operationally, a disaster—that led directly to the massacre. But a film can't show everything, and the meat of Spielberg's narrative is not the massacre itself but Israel's response to it, a counter-terror campaign that has long been shrouded in mystery—and to some extent still is. It is here that artistic license overwhelms, when it doesn't entirely dispense with, the true story of what happened after Munich.

In Munich, a hastily assembled covert assassination team is gathered by Golda Meir and given a list of targets—the men responsible for the attack. There are 11 Palestinians (a convenient match to the 11 dead Israeli athletes) who must pay the price. It didn't happen that way. Israel did authorize and empower a counter-terror assassination campaign in Munich's wake (more on that below), but no list of targets was ever given to an assassination team. Indeed, there was no "one team" charged with carrying out any sort of ongoing revenge operation. Specific targets were identified and then approved for assassination by top Mossad officials, and ultimately by the prime minister, as evidence grew in Israeli eyes that these individuals were likely to plan further attacks. Palestinian operatives, including many who had nothing to do with the Munich Massacre, were sentenced to death on a case-by-case basis. The list of targets was constantly changing. Assassination teams were sent out, mission by mission, as evidence and opportunity warranted.

The assassins in Munich are presented as quintessential everyday guys—patriots who want to defend their country and who gradually grow disillusioned, guilt-ridden, and paranoid. The Mossad teams did draw from the ordinary Israeli population, but they were well-trained professionals intent on their missions. In the movie, a Mossad agent gingerly asks a target if he "knows why we are here?" That's farfetched. In interviewing more than 50 veterans of the Mossad and military intelligence, I found not a single trace of remorse. On the contrary, Mossad combatants thought they were doing holy work.

The assassins in Munich are on their own—the Mossad denies their existence and cuts them off—much as Cold War spies were said to be. In fact, assassination teams were the head of a spear; behind them were analysts and informational gathering units in Israel and in Europe, a whole network that was focused on both supplying the agents with information and properly directing their operations.

As Spielberg's assassination squad begins work in Europe, they come to rely on a kind of freelance intelligence merchant who works for a shadowy organization, "Le Group," that trades the names and locations of targets for big money. Whether or not such an organization existed, or might have, the Mossad never relied on such an entity. Security apparatuses don't function that way. The Mossad gathered its own intelligence, relying mainly on human intelligence from Palestinian informants living in Europe and the Middle East. Operatives recruited and directed these sources all over Europe, while analysts in Israel sifted through mountains of data looking for concrete terror plans—and potential perpetrators. Unfortunately, much of the storyline of Munich concerns this fanciful "Le Group" subplot.

The Munich Massacre triggered a fundamental change in Israel's approach to terrorism—a "Munich Revolution" (the phrase was used by the Mossad) that endures as a mindset and an operational protocol today. Finding and killing the perpetrators of the Munich Massacre was a part of that campaign only insofar as the men involved were deemed likely to act again. Revenge was the atmosphere—but preventing future attacks by networks that Israel saw as threatening its citizens was the goal. Mistakes were made, innocents were killed, and Israel's government and intelligence agencies never publicly questioned their right to carry out assassinations on foreign soil. Indeed, the true story of Israel's response to Munich is if anything more ambiguous than Spielberg's narrative.

But Spielberg has bought into one of the myths of the Mossad—that after Munich they staged a revenge operation to hunt down and assassinate everyone responsible. Israelis, too, bought into this myth (myself included, at one time) which a shocked public demanded—but that doesn't make it true. Spielberg, in inventing a story about violence begetting violence "inspired by real events" is raising questions worth asking. Even so, Israel's response to Munich was not a simple revenge operation carried out by angst-ridden Israelis. Both the larger context, and the facts on the ground, rarely get in Spielberg's way. A rigorous factual accounting may not be the point of Munich, which Spielberg has characterized as a "prayer for peace." But as result, Munich has less to do with history and the grim aftermath of the Munich Massacre than some might wish.

Aaron J. Klein is Time magazine's military and intelligence affairs correspondent in the Jerusalem Bureau and the author of Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response.

[Gamblour.]

SPOILOPOLIS

Just saw this. I liked it a lot, definitely one of my favorites this year. This film just ran on and on so smoothly, I didn't feel there were any problems with it. That sex scene, I can see how it works on an intellectual level, but it made me sit there and think "Is this bad or emotionally fitting?" Knowing that it was showing the final bits of the massacre, I went for the latter. I think it works for the most part. The rest of the film is incredible. Spielberg's doing great things with language. In War of the Worlds, the characters constantly talk on top of and interrupt each other, to great effect. Here, there are multiple languages, weaving in and out, all brilliantly spoken. The female assassin was a great subsubplot. I like the structuring and the display of the assassinations, how each one is crafted and carried out, paced very quickly too, so there are seconds of tension to spare later on. The first is so messy, then the second is almost a travesty, and the third one actually is, then the fourth is just a big wreck. Anyhow, I was talking with a friend, and we both agreed there is absolutely nothing wrong with this film. Like Catch Me If You Can, it's so perfectly executed and is never dull and just moves right along.

Ultrahip, what scene did he leave the hat?

[ddmarfield]

Spoilers

I really, really wanted to love this film. Although it has many moments of greatness, its too long and gets a tad preachy at times.
I feel that Spielberg isn't the best at political filmmaking. Any scenes with violence are top notch and extremely suspenseful. In fact, it felt more like a James Bond film at times. The mixed results are when there are scenes with long speeches. Sometimes they are incredibly insightful; sometimes they are almost corny. Tony Kushner's screenplay is a mixed bag (I had the same feeling with Angels in America, which alternated between brilliance and bizarre ramblings).
And there are times when Spielberg turns the emotional intensity way up without any warning, and the results are somewhat awkward (the phone scene where the kid says dada). Perhaps he was trying to replicate the ending of Schindler's List, in which the emotional "I could have done more" scene has been slowly build up and serves as a payoff.

On a more personal level, I don't really know what to make of the overall message. Its noble for Spielberg to even attempt a film dealing with the middle east, but his "we're all the same deep down" message didn't really resonate with me. Perhaps I just wanted a more concrete stance, be it pro Israel, pro Palestine, whatever. I don't need to agree with a film's message; I just want one that takes a definite stance. Still, I realize that this is more of a personal gripe, and that its hard to relate it to films sometimes.

Overall, ltheres some good stuff here, but it don't think it will be one of the more fondly remembered Spielberg dramas. I wish about half an hour had been left on the cutting room floor. B-

[Ultrahip]

Gamblour, the scene with the hat is not one of the squad assassinations, it's the one in the hotel done by the woman from the bar.

[Gamblour.]

Gamblour, the scene with the hat is not one of the squad assassinations, it's the one in the hotel done by the woman from the bar.

Oh ok. Hm I don't remember that, but this movie is worth seeing twice.

matt35, I don't get what long dialogue parts you're talking about. basically anything with Geoffrey Rush? I can't recall beyond that. I'm just trying to understand what you mean so i can talk you out of it

[matt35mm]

matt35, I don't get what long dialogue parts you're talking about. basically anything with Geoffrey Rush? I can't recall beyond that. I'm just trying to understand what you mean so i can talk you out of it

I didn't mean overlong.  Just long enough to feel play-like.  I already said that I preferred the words to the action, even though the action was brilliantly executed.  There was just a part of me that felt that this movie about such serious subject matter and with such potential to delve so deeply into it (and the fact that is a Spielberg movie means that it would be in the unique position of actually having people SEE IT), it just struck me as odd that there are moments of drama that depend on whether the little girl picks up the phone, on whether or not an explosion will be contained within one room or if it will spill into other rooms of the building, etc. etc.  Not that those aren't fascinating scenes of genuine tension, but the truth is I probably would have preferred to see the play version of this.  I felt like there were important things being eschewed for the action sequences.

So don't get me wrong, I feel like every element of the movie was brilliant, but that a couple of elements didn't fit together.  For me.  I probably prefer the parts that most people would find strange or unnatural (which is just the way plays tend to be), like Golda Mier's scenes.  That probably wouldn't have made this movie as entertaining as it needed to be, though.  It's just that I've seen violence in movies before, but I've never seen a movie with as much potential to delve into this specific HATRED and the political complications of these missions.  Hatred is fascinating, and I wanted more than just "I want to get every one of these pigs."  Munich was so much bigger than Munich.  "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values..." that was fascinating to me, and I felt that was just sort of skimmed through.

I guess it boils down to I slightly wish this were more the movie I wanted it to be, which almost invalidates my criticisms.  I wanted a bolder, messier, more frustrating, complicated movie.  It was too simple, given the subject matter.  STILL, I'm just going into what I feel to a mild degree.  I still feel that it's an excellent movie, because this is a small issue that I have with it, and like I said, they're not very valid criticisms.  So my grade is, as it was, B+.

[hedwig]

Munich
The revenge of vengeance

Ebert Rating: ****

BY ROGER EBERT / Dec 23, 2005

Steven Spielberg's "Munich" is an act of courage and conscience. The director of "Schindler's List," the founder of the Shoah Foundation, the most successful and visible Jew in the world of film, has placed himself between Israel and the Palestinians, looked at decades of terrorism and reprisal, and had one of his characters conclude, "There is no peace at the end of this." Spielberg's film has been called an attack on the Palestinians and he has been rebuked as "no friend of Israel." By not taking sides, he has taken both sides.

The film has deep love for Israel, and contains a heartfelt moment when a mother reminds her son why the state had to be founded: "We had to take it because no one would ever give it to us. Whatever it took, whatever it takes, we have a place on earth at last." With this statement, I believe, Spielberg agrees to the bottom of his soul. Yet his film questions Israel's policy of swift and full retribution for every attack.

"Munich" opens with a heart-stopping re-enactment of the kidnapping and deaths of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. It then shows Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) with her cabinet, stating firmly, "Forget peace for now." It shows the formation of a secret Israeli revenge squad to kill those responsible. It concludes that although nine of the 11 were eventually eliminated, they were replaced and replaced again by men even more dangerous, while the terrorists responded with even more deaths. What was accomplished?

The movie is based upon a book by George Jonas, a 1956 Hungarian freedom fighter, now a conservative Toronto political writer, who has been an acquaintance for 25 years. I thought to ask him what he thought of Spielberg's view of his material, but I didn't. I wanted to review the movie as an interested but not expert outsider, sharing (with most of the film's audience) not a great deal more knowledge than the film supplies. Those who know more, who know everything, are often the wrong ones to consult about a film based on fact. The task of the director is to transmute fact into emotions and beliefs -- and beliefs, we need to be reminded, are beliefs precisely because they are not facts.

"Munich" takes the form of a thriller matched with a procedural. Eric Bana stars as Avner, a former bodyguard to Meir, who is made leader of the secret revenge squadron. He and his men are paid off the books, have no official existence, and are handled by a go-between named Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush). Why it is necessary to deny their existence is not quite explained by the film, since they are clearly carrying out Israeli policy and Israel wants that known; they even use bombs instead of bullets to generate more dramatic publicity.

Avner is assigned only four teammates: Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), a toymaker, expert at disarming bombs, now asked to build them; Carl (Ciaran Hinds), who removes the evidence after every action; Steve (Daniel Craig), the trigger man, and Hans (Hanns Zischler), who can forge letters and documents. They travel with assumed names and false passports, and discover the whereabouts of many of their targets by paying bounties to a shadowy Frenchman named Louis (Mathieu Amalric).

Eventually Avner meets Louis' "Papa" (Michael Lonsdale), who has been selling information for years. Papa fought in the French Resistance, is now disillusioned: "We paid this price so Nazi scum could be replaced by Gaullist scum. We don't deal with governments." The family, he believes, is the only unit worth fighting for. His speech is moving, but does he really believe Avner and his money do not come from a government?

The film's most exciting moments are in the details of assassinations. Plastic bombs are planted, booby traps are baited, there is a moment of Hitchcockian suspense when the team waits for a little girl to leave for school before calling her father's telephone; they have failed to see her re-enter the house, and are astonished when she answers the phone. As the team tries to prevent the explosion, we reflect how it is always more thrilling in a movie, when someone needs to run desperately, for it to be an awkward older man.

The teammates move among world capitals. One night, in a comic screw-up with deadly possibilities, Avner's men and a PLO team are booked into the same "safe house." As the operation proceeds, it takes a psychic toll on Avner, who moves his family to Brooklyn, who grows paranoid, who questions the ethical basis of the operation he heads: "Jews don't do wrong because our enemies do wrong," he argues, and "if these people committed crimes we should have arrested them." To which he is told, "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values."

The same debate is going on right now in America. If it is true that civilizations must sometimes compromise their values, the questions remain: What is the cost, and what is the benefit? Spielberg clearly asks if Israel has risked more than it has gained. The stalemate in the Middle East will continue indefinitely, his film argues, unless brave men on both sides decide to break with the pattern of the past. Certainly in Israel itself it is significant that old enemies Ariel Sharon, from the right, and Shimon Peres, from the left, are now astonishingly both in the same new party and seeking a new path to peace. For the Palestinians, it may be crucial that the PLO's corrupt Arafat no longer has a personal stake in the status quo, and a new generation of leaders has moved into place.

Spielberg's film is well-timed in view of these unexpected political developments, which he could not have foreseen (Sharon left his Likud Party on Nov. 21, 2005, and Peres left his Labour Party a week later). Far from being "no friend of Israel," he may be an invaluable friend, and for that very reason a friend of the Palestinians as well.

Spielberg is using the effective form of a thriller to argue that loops of mutual reprisal have led to endless violence in the Middle East, Ireland, India and Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, Africa, and on and on. Miraculous, that the pariah nation of South Africa was the one place where irreconcilable enemies found a way to peacefully share the same land together.

At crucial times in a nation's history, its best friends may be its critics. Spielberg did not have to make "Munich," but he needed to. With this film he has dramatically opened a wider dialogue, helping to make the inarguable into the debatable. As a thriller, "Munich" is efficient, absorbing, effective. As an ethical argument, it is haunting. And its questions are not only for Israel but for any nation that believes it must compromise its values to defend them.

[grand theft sparrow]

First off, did anyone else notice that Louis the Frenchman looked exactly like young Roman Polanski?  That freaked me out. 

Second, I agree with matt35mm 100%.



Like others, I had problems with both sex scenes, thought they were out of place.  I felt the first one, when Avner's wife is still pregnant, was merely to set up the second one.  I didn't like the juxtaposition of the sex with the Olympics massacre; I know we're supposed to get that everything that happened in Munich and what transpired afterwards will always stay with him but (and I don't say this often) the sex felt kind of gratuitous.  I don't know; I promised a friend of mine that I'd go see it with him when he goes so maybe a second viewing will change my mind on it but after one viewing, it didn't sit well with me.

The one thing I flat out didn't like was that I knew that Spielberg was going to end with that shot of the World Trade Center.  I live a short ride from where they shot the final scene (as a matter of fact, I was trying to shoot part of a short in a warehouse near there earlier in the year that fell through) and I knew as soon as we got that aerial shot of Avner walking away, I started thinking, "He's gonna end on the Towers. I know he's gonna end on the Towers."  Sure enough...

Yes, the film is about terrorism and yes, it is about morally questionable retaliation to said terrorism but the film illustrated that well enough on its own without spelling it out like that.  I dare say that was even more telegraphed than Spielberg has done before.

But man, he was channeling Hitchcock through most of the first half, it was great.  He reminded us of how great a director he really is.  A(lmost a)ll is forgiven for The Terminal.

[killafilm]

First off, did anyone else notice that Louis the Frenchman looked exactly like young Roman Polanski?  That freaked me out. 

So on point.

I was a bit freaked out by the second sex scene.  But now having a week to digest the movie it seems to make sense.  Sex  just seems like natural way to work things out.  And if Bana needs some sweaty head swinging sex to overcome the guilt of killing terrorists, well then some sweaty head swinging sex shall be had.  I really like the shot with the two towers.  First, they were there in the 70's.  Second, I don't think the framing really drew your eyes straight to them.  Lastly, I felt it really did tie up the whole movie.  Modern Terrorism started in Munich, and for American audiences at least, that last image shows directly what it has led up to.

[Gamblour.]

Bana's character wasn't using the sex to overcome guilt. He was haunted by the images during an act that should be normal and intimate.

[JG]

First off, I think this is the best movie of the year.  I saw it tonight, so it still has to soak in my mind, but it was excellent. 

Most of my gripes with the movie are pretty minor.

SPOILERS

For me the ending sex scene is like DeNiro not being able to shoot the deer in the Deer Hunter (The whole New York partof the movie is like the third act of Deer Hunter), These events have certainly distorted his reality, but it wasn't necesary to intercut it with the Munich events.   To show his face would have been enough. I think Spielberg should have opted to be a little more subtle here.  The sex scene all by itself without the intercutting would be much more powerful.   

The only real flaw is that Spielberg should have been a little more subtle.  He really drove whole the "family-is-more-important-than-your-country" theme.  I mean, it was an integral part of the movie and a moral dilemma for Bana's character, but there was a point where I said, "okay, enough about family!"  and then the ending:  why did he have to end it with the shot?   I think enough suggestions were made about the never-ending cycle of violence in today's world to have to remind us.  tone it down steven, and you may have the best movie of your career.

Now to the good stuff.  This is the only four star of the movie in the year and is easily the most exciting of the year.  More so than King Kong.   And unlike Syriana, it isn't mired in it's political implications and wasn't too preachy.  For the most part (other than the previously menionted missteps) it knows it's place.  it is an excellent political thriller with characters that everyone can connect to.   What I love about Bana's character is that he is such a simple guy.  Not complex at all, nor should he be.   He is an every-man, and a blind patriot.  I think the most important theme of this movie is blind patriotism.   it is not until the end that he asks any questions, but it's too late.  it's already screwed him up.   Was anyone else really reminded by the Deer Hunter in a lot of it's themes?

Very solid performances all around.   Awesome directing.  The suspense is amazing.  Visually, there were some great shots.   There were some great scenes that really hit me pretty hard.   4 out of 4.  go see it.