~ryanlowe/blog: Munich Review

Munich Review

I saw Munich yesterday and I thought it was quite good. It was nearly three hours long but compared to King Kong it was a much smoother ride and I felt less restless. There are spoilers in this review. Disclaimer: I was baptised Roman Catholic.

What really helped me understand this movie was an excellent documentary aired by the CBC just a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if it was a CBC production and I can't find the title but it gave an excellent overview of the entire Munich massacre and it's aftermath, which made Munich (the movie) much easier to follow.

The overriding themes of Munich to me were 1) people fighting to have their own home; 2) the battle in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians having no conceivable end with each side trying to eradicate the other completely; and 3) "regular" people turned assassins who progressively get used to methodically killing people, even to the point where they take a detour from the list of names.

I was curious how an obviously Jewish director like Spielberg would handle both sides of the conflict and he did it in quite an interesting way. Instead of Palestinians giving their side directly (aside from one direct discussion between an Arab and a Jew posing as a "Jew sypathizer") during most of the movie the arguments were given on both sides by Jews. The most interesting part was the discussion between Jews about which side was more violent, with one Jew reminding another that violence is how the Jews occupied Israel in the first place.

It's hard to criticize Spielberg for being one-sided when the movie is about one side -- but even so I think the movie did a decent job while at the same time (not surprisingly) producing no new arguments on the subject as far as I could tell.

I have to wonder if maybe the script could have been beefed up to be more cerebral. On the other hand people were actually leaving the matinee I was at, so maybe the movie was too cerebral and not "pedestrian" enough for a Spielberg blockbuster-type movie. As far as major motion pictures go, I thought it was a passable mix of discussion and action/suspense/mood/violence "eye candy" (ie. the arm hanging from the fan).

People shouldn't go in there expecting a documentary style, just as they shouldn't expect that from other "based-on-events" movies like Saving Private Ryan or Enemy at the Gates. Those movies had more action zip, whereas Munich seemed more subdued, with Avner getting more and more depressed and paranoid as the movie went on. The violence was less of a "cool looking" vehicle and more along the lines of necessary to tell the story.

One last thing: at the end of the movie, the twin towers of the World Trade Center are clearly visible in a panning wide shot. They look absolutely seamless, which makes me wonder if maybe the whole skyline was a matte painting (to simulate the 1970's NYC skyline) or if the towers were digitally added to the shot later. It seems like adding them digitally to a panning shot would be quite difficult, but what do I know? :)

Overall? Go see this movie in the theatre. Try to see that documentary on the CBC/Newsworld first though.

Posted at January 10, 2006 at 01:32 PM EST
Last updated January 10, 2006 at 01:32 PM EST

Comments

Overall I liked the movie, especially the style and even the acting, but one thing in particular confused me. Spielberg made it seem like the main character was having flashbacks of the Munich event, when really he wasn't any part of that event. He wasn't even born. And why did that final flashback overlap with the sex scene? Was the main character really thinking of the Munich event while he was having sex? Shouldn't he have been thinking about his wife, or his own safety, or of the people he killed? Did Spielberg just want to mix sex and violence for effect? I was really confused. Another minor annoyance... when they went to kill the dutch girl in the boathhouse, why did they feel the need to aquire three bike tire pump-guns instead of a normal gun with a silencer, which we know they had. It was like I was watching James Bond or Mission Impossible for a few minutes.

» Posted by: V. Mardian at January 10, 2006 05:39 PM

Avner avenged the killings shortly after they happened -- he was certainly alive when they happened. I don't think he was having flashbacks of things he experienced, I think Spielberg wanted the scenes to be Avner imagining the events unfolding as he had heard about them. Most of the details were public knowledge because they were on live TV and he could have gotten more classified information about the attacks directly from the Mossad. The flashbacks seem to happen throughout the movie as Avner recalls why he is killing people.

I'm not sure why Spielberg chose to merge the final massacre scene with the sex scene. Both situations are very emotional, obviously. Avner could be recalling the deaths of his countrymen to justify the revenge killings, which indirectly protect Israel and more importantly but also indirectly his own family, whom he loves very much.

Being with his wife and his overwhelming love for her (and that he hasn't seen her in a long time) may be reminding him why he was away from her for so long, which triggers the "flashback". It could also simply be the fact that Avner can help by preoccupied with the killings because that's all he has thought about in the past months and he is drained emotionally.

Another possibility is that the massacre and revenge stories were simply intertwined together, with the climaxes happening at the same time. The climax of Avner's story was being safely back together with his wife. Then he's not having flashbacks at all. I don't like that option as much because all of the other flashbacks seem to be initiatiated by Avner in moments of thought, making a connection between the events of the massacre and Avner thinking about them.

It was interesting that the Dutch assassin was killed by special guns. Maybe it was because they couldn't smuggle guns across the border(s) from Paris or because regular guns would be too loud (though we know they had silencers). Maybe they didn't want the woman to immediately identify the weapons as guns, though she seemed to know quite quickly she was in danger anyway because she recognized Avner.

They seemed obviously clumsy with those guns, an intentional move by Spielberg, which leads me to guess those guns may have been their only choice for killing her. The three men could have easily overpowered her, but may not have wanted to use messier or noiser methods like strangulation or knives because she may have screamed. But I'm no assassin. ;)

» Posted by: Ryan at January 10, 2006 06:06 PM

You're right, I had my timeline wrong.

But I still don't buy the gun thing. At the very least they could have "prepared" their special guns outside the boat. It was kind of stupid to approach another assasin without being ready.

» Posted by: V. Mardian at January 10, 2006 06:39 PM

I think Speilberg intentionally made the killing sloppy just like the other assassinations done by the Israelis.

There was lots of money from the Isreali government (1M+ USD) but the men didn't have a lot of experience killing people and there wasn't a lot of time to prepare detailed plans once the targets were found. Spielberg was trying to show this naiveness and hurriedness -- almost all of the killings were bumbled in some way.

Avner and the other man each had one bullet loaded when they arrived at the boathouse -- they may not have anticipated having to reload the guns and firing again. They never fired the reloaded rounds, she was finished off by the third man.

» Posted by: Ryan at January 10, 2006 06:54 PM

Check out "The Hulk of Munich", a merge of the trailers for The Hulk and Munich.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2687315

» Posted by: Max at January 12, 2006 07:47 PM