Munich

Every human being is just that: a human being. Now, this may not seem like a huge revelation or a deeply profound statement, and maybe it’s not. But when dealing with conflict, with wrongs being done to us and deciding how to answer those wrongs, we very often forget that those wrongs are being done to us by humans. Remembering that might make us think twice about how we react to things.

Munich is a very important movie, one of the most important movies to be released in recent years. Leave it to Spielberg to make a movie like this. He’s the most famous director in the world for a reason, and that was brought home to me by this movie. He has a golden touch for most things, and does social issues with a certain delicacy and gentleness. His methods are kind of like a good father’s: he unflinchingly lets you see the horrible things of life, then cradles you gently and whispers words of comfort while you’re trying to deal with them. Usually with Spielberg, there’s some sort of hope. Whether it’s the fun and pluck of such films as E.T. or Indiana Jones, or the quiet endurance of Schindler’s List, there is some element in there that lets you know the whole time that it’s all going to be all right. In Munich, that hope is muted and frail, but it’s still there. The hope comes in the human element of the story, in the simple fact that no amount of ugliness can quench the human spirit.

The framework of the plot of Munich is real events. The only things we know for absolute certain as being real and true are that in 1972, 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped and murdered at the Munich Olympics by Arab terrorists, and shortly afterwards, 9 of the men thought to be responsible, directly or indirectly, were dead. After that, everything ranges from “could have been” to “probably was” to “almost certainly wasn’t.” The thing that’s so remarkable about Munich is its inability to let anyone off the hook. It never lets us forget that these are people involved in these stories, people with mothers, fathers, jobs, needs, obsessions, fears, and aspirations. When someone dies, it’s not just a statistic, a mark on a chalkboard.

The actors, who are mostly unknown to the general public (Geoffrey Rush aside), do a nice job of creating people who are real, whole, and don’t know they are in a movie. The cinematography is spectacular, creating a surprisingly warm atmosphere. Eric Bana carries the movie with ease and fluidity, making sure to highlight the issue at hand instead of himself. The movie doesn’t deal in answers, and brings out that the questions it poses don’t in fact have answers. It instead attempts to understand the actions of these characters through empathy, which is what any great film does. Once it does that, however, it doesn’t wave that power around irresponsibly like a kid who’s found his dad’s gun. It tries to bring us to a place where we can be more aware, more understanding, and maybe more compassionate.

In retrospect, Crash just barely has the edge over Munich for the Best Picture Oscar in my opinion. Both movies make you think very hard when they’re done, and spark a little bit of soul-searching. Crash deals with something that’s a little more universal, and does so in a more explicit fashion, but watching Munich doesn’t make you feel like a bastard the way watching Crash does, and that’s actually to its credit. The last line that’s spoken in the film is by a wife to a husband, saying “I love you.” After all that ugliness, there is still hope.

Iconic lines:
“Oh, we are tragic men; butcher’s hands, gentle souls.”
“If my fingernails grow, do I not cut them off?”
“Don’t f*** with Israel.”

22 Rating: 17

Particle Man