A pivotal sequence in Steven Spielberg’s new film, Munich, takes place when Avner (Eric Bana), an undercover Israeli operative, has a conversation with Ali, a Palestinian extremist. It does not take long for communication to give way to stubborn ideals, and a heated conversation begins to get volatile. Soon the two will have to meet in a different kind of scenario-one with racked nerves and ample arsenal.
It’s moments like these that remind you of how great Munich could have been, had it not indulged in its own self-importance. Spielberg has etched a tough study on violence and the ensuing redemption, yet fails to sustain interest in the final act of the film, as he gives in to a long, drawn-out conclusion.
The film opens with portions of the Black September massacre where 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian extremists during the 1972 Munich Olympics, vividly depicted through the television screens of captivated viewers from around the world.
As the world begins to turn its attention back to the Games, a top-secret Israeli committee assembles a plan to deliver “Operation Wrath of God” to 11 Palestinians who apparently had a hand in planning the massacre.
Immediately questions of righteousness and legitimacy arise, concerns that are quickly stifled when the Israeli Prime Minister notes: “Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values.” And this is what Munich becomes for its main players: a constant battle between values and national loyalty.
The five members of the hit squad include a shrewd documents expert (Hanns Zischler), a meek toy-maker-turned-bomb-specialist (Matthieu Kassovitz), a Steve McQueen-like getaway driver (Daniel Craig in pre-Bond mode), a philosophical clean-up man (Ciaran Hinds), and the impressionable leader, Avner (Bana).
These wary assassins move from target to target with growing precision, while their attempts become increasingly problematic. The weight of the murders begins to wear away at the men, who seem to maintain, as one character states: “… butcher’s hands, (but) gentle souls.”
Soon, Avner’s team becomes aware of further retaliation from Black September, the danger that they themselves could become targets, and their surmounting angst.
Avner becomes the central figure who tries to maintain humanity in the face of political terror. He balances gruesome bomb plots with phone calls to his family and roundtable dinners with his comrades. Inevitably, his attempt at stability collapses.
The message that “violence begets more violence” is apparent early in the film, and could not be further elaborated. However, Munich speaks volumes on many other topics related to our post-9/11 world (a closing shot of the World Trade Centre drives home this point). The film goes to great lengths to impress the importance of home, and the toll that violence takes on the individual.
Yet Spielberg’s capable hand truly shows when depicting communication problems between the two conflicting sides, as seen in a perfectly comical scene when Daniel Craig’s German Jew character and a Palestinian agent almost come to blows for control of the radio. They can approve of neither Palestinian nor German music, respectively, so they reach a quirky compromise with Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”
Much of Munich maintains the aura of the taut espionage thrillers from the 70s, effusively employing the muted European palettes and the peering-in zoom lens style of that era. A sequence involving a young child and a telephone-triggered bomb tensely evokes Hitchcock.
There are several moments in this film which stand as perfect testaments of its flair and aptitude: the perfect sense of chaos achieved after the excessive destruction caused by a hotel bomb, the sex-and-death-style murder of the film’s femme fatale, and Avner’s heartfelt first conversation with his daughter. So why is Munich not great?
Spielberg’s film falls apart in its final moments as it over-dramatically depicts Avner’s mental collapse, and loses its dark edge for the sake of a righteous conclusion. The film, as a whole, is too embroiled in its Faustian world of espionage that the onslaught of human emotion near the end seems contrived and schematic.
Also, Spielberg’s inter-cutting of the final moments of the Black September massacre with a sex scene comes across as rather tasteless and tacky, and serves to undermines the potency of what went before.
Those qualms aside, Munich is still a tough contender of a film, one that takes you through the depths of violence and redemption with vivid performances, an exhilarating score, and cinematography that brings you back to the zenith of great filmmaking.
