So, is it fair to say The Terminal, War of the Worlds, and Munich make up Spielberg’s 9/11 trilogy? Each of these movies is in some way a response to that event, grappling with themes surrounding it, whether it’s emphasizing optimism and hope (The Terminal), fear and anger (War of the Worlds), or retaliatory actions and deeper moral implications. And of these movies, Munich is the most thoughtful, and the most introspective. Munich is a complicated movie, and perhaps the most unabashedly controversial of Spielberg’s filmography given its subject matter and the political implications of it in the context of the U.S. relationship with Israel. The critical response to the movie was mixed on that issue, but its greyness is precisely what makes it fascinating.
Based on the book Vengeance by George Jonas, it recounts the Israeli government’s Operation Wrath of God, an attempt to assassinate the actors in the Palestinian terrorist group Black September responsible for the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Mossad agent Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana) is put in charge of the mission by Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen), assembling an international team consisting of Steve (Daniel Craig) a South African driver, Carl (Ciaran Hinds) an Israeli soldier, Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz) a Belgian demolitions expert, and Hans (Hanns Zischler) a Danish forger. As they eliminate more of their targets, the team and especially Kaufman, are confronted with the moral consequences of their actions.
One of the criticisms levied at this movie was that it appeared to equate the assassins with the terrorists, saying that what Israel was doing in revenge was just as bad as what the Palestinians did spontaneously. The scene most indicative of this idea is a conversation between Kaufman and Ali (Omar Metwally), a PLO member whose squad is temporarily sharing a safe house with the main characters. Not knowing Kaufman’s real identity or agenda, Ali is able to be open about his political and cultural feelings, and the film emphasizes a sort of shared disgruntlement with the state of the world and the treatment of their countries, and certainly a shared humanity –which is a radical thing. In a post-9/11 world, it takes exceptional daring to try and make a terrorist relatable, and it’s understandable that this would provoke outrage (especially released in a culture well-versed in fearmongering). It’s true that while the film never glorifies Ali, it finds no righteousness in what Kaufman’s doing either. However what this scene does is it merely presents Ali and his point of view against Kaufman’s, in so doing addressing some of the reasons one may turn to terrorism and extreme ideology. Any equivalency is drawn by the audience necessitated by the story being told from Kaufman’s point of view. And I suppose that’s what some critics, professional or otherwise, didn’t like; the audacity this film had to present a terrorist outside of the simple terms of American discourse around terrorism, as one who might not be so different from the protagonists in this situation.
That’s not to say Munich justifies or condones his actions by any means, or even that it tries to present any kind of reasonable excuse or logic for terrorism. Ali is a bad person. What the film is saying is that Kaufman and the others may be too. By far the biggest theme that Munich explores is the morality of retaliatory action and its eroding consequences. It’s the classic notion of whether or not an eye for an eye is constructive. Kaufman and his crew are certainly framed as the gang of heroes we should be rooting for, until the deaths. Because their targets aren’t shady crime lord figures in compounds with henchmen. Rather they seem to be normal people, who just happen to have been involved in a horrific act of violence. One who is hiding out in Rome appears to be a poet, and another lives in a particularly wealthy Parisian home with a young daughter. Yet our main characters are merciless, shooting the former dead as he’s carrying groceries home and planting a bomb in the home of the latter that very nearly kills the girl as well. Their dedication to not harming innocents as much as possible is what saved her, but even this can’t be helped as the mission proceeds and stakes escalate. As everyone’s (except perhaps Steve) disillusionment grows, it becomes harder to see their actions as justified, even with the atrocity their victims perpetrated. Yet they still carry out their orders and even, in evidence of their growing numbness to killing, go out of their way to murder the woman who killed Carl. But then it’s not entirely the fault of Kaufman and his crew. Not so subtly, the movie is criticizing the more serious offence that a government is sanctioning this kind of reprehensible action. Defending the film, critic David Edelstein noted, “What Munich says is that this shortsighted tit-for-tat can produce a kind of insanity, both individual and collective.” The question of whether it’s right for a government to resort to such means for vengeance is being posed, and though it seems pretty apparent Spielberg is coming down on the side of just governments should be better than this, there’s plenty of room for interpretation, as it’s not that simple an answer. The backlash this movie received is proof enough of that.
This film is also worth examining in a Jewish context and in relation to the nation of Israel, at the time it’s set (and still today let’s be honest) a relatively new country on the world stage. Often, the nations’ Jewish identity and origin are brought up, from Ali’s anti-Semitic arguments to the government framing the assassinations as an act of religious as well as political recourse. It’s interesting because here Spielberg’s greying the moral conduct of explicitly Jewish people after requiring none of that for Schindler’s List. Extreme emotion is driving action and there are nuances to where it’s coming from. And it’s a further effort from Spielberg to present both sides of an issue.
Acting his heart out in the centre of all these complex themes is Eric Bana in perhaps the best performance I’ve ever seen him give. He’s playing a character gradually being traumatized but in largely subtle ways and it’s very impressive. Obviously moments like his discovery of a murdered Carl and his insomnia after the missions’ completion are standout scenes, and there’s a lot of passion in general from Bana in the aftermath of the murders, both the anger and regret for what he did and whether it amounted to anything, and the paranoia that he’s being targeted by his own former government while living in New York. Hinds and Kassovitz are solid as usual, so is Zischler. Daniel Craig one year before his Bond debut, is great as his very cynical character. His future adversary, Mathieu Almaric is terrifically duplicitous and seedy seeming as the teams’ informant Louis, and Geoffrey Rush likewise brings the right level of untrustworthiness to Kaufman’s handler Ephraim, personifying the Israeli government throughout the film. One of the few genuine Israeli performers in the film in a major role is Ayelet Zurer as Kaufman’s wife Dafna, doing a good job, but reminding the audience this is still a Hollywood movie as much as it may not look like it at times.
The depiction of the Munich massacre, whether in the opening establishing scenes or in flashbacks is viscerally tense and brutal. In fact it’s clear to see how some movies since about real-life hostage situations or attacks have borrowed from Munich. The chaos and horror of it, the suddenness when someone is killed compounds its realness and brutality. Janusz Kaminski’s hectic cinematography and John Williams’ haunting, tragic music heighten its impact as well. Another really noteworthy sequence is the attack in Paris, playing out with ideal espionage precision as it’s entirely shot from the point of view of the characters in their stations keeping a steady suspense throughout. The mise en scene is very significant too, such as the symbolic framing in the scene where Kaufman comes upon Carl’s body and the World Trade Centre loudly visible in the background of the final shot making the 9/11 metaphor that much harder to ignore.
Munich once again represents an effort by Spielberg to challenge himself, returning to the territory of realism after a few movies more sensational, idealistic, or speculative. In a way it’s also one of his most fearless movies with its willingness to upend certain taboos about terrorism and the morality of retaliatory violence. What’s striking too is that Munich came out the same year as War of the Worlds which offers a much more simplistic portrayal of the ‘other’. Perhaps through both movies, Spielberg was working out conflicting feelings on terror attacks and the atmosphere of fear.
Munich was one of several good movies to lose the Oscar to Crash that year, but it was also the last Spielberg movie to truly deserve the nomination it did get. And after its’ bleakness and the contemporary 9/11 themes of his last few movies, Spielberg decided to finally return to his roots.
It was not a good idea.
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