Not a Weapon in the Culture War, Just a Fairly Shitty Movie

Roy Edroso does the review of Munich that I've wanted to write ever since I saw it on Christmas Eve. The talk about Munich thus far has been dominated by those on the Right who think Spielberg commits treason or moral cowardice by asserting some kind of equivalence between Palestinian violence and Israeli self-defense. That's an irrelevant argument to make about a movie directed by someone whose output includes Jurassic Park, Jaws, E.T. and other theme park rides. This ain't Fassbinder, and Spielberg ain't that deep.

For all the talk about how the movie thematically describes the futility of perpetual violence there's shockingly little of that actually in the film. The first half, practically, is basically no different than The Goonies: a ragtag group is assembled to complete various exciting missions in exotic locales. While the group is supposed to incorporate five people with diverse backgrounds and particular skills, we never find out what any of them are save for the guy who makes bombmaking gadgets (Matthieu Kassovitz). Apparently the special skills of the others are mainly "waiting in the car while the bomb explodes." Sure, there are a few isolated moments of self-doubt and faux sincerity, but the forward motion of the plot throughout the first half is really "What bad guy will go down next?" It's pretty to look at, and has the look of 70s potboilers like Black Sunday (that movie in particular leapt out at me while I was watching). And underneath it's just as hollow as those thrillseeking escapades.

When the movie does get around to its message, it's alternately awkward, stilted and derivative. Roy addresses this much better than I could:

So far as it goes, this is a creditable approach that might have served, say, Alan Clarke or Costa-Gavras well. Try, though, to imagine Spielberg sticking to a format like this. He just can’t do it, and has to reach out of the moral morass for his nearest equivalent to redemption, the Big Movie Moment that is his stock in trade: the Moment of recognition between Avner and his Arab counterpart (across a bloody street battle), the Moment of personal crisis (cribbed rather tastelessly from The Conversation), several Moments of Mom involving the women in Avner’s life -- his mother, his wife, and Golda Meir -- and the biggest Moment (and biggest mistake), of Thanatopsis, when Avner recalls the climax of the Munich massacre during a physical act of love. (Not the mention the Moment with the radio, which would have made a nice Coca-Cola commercial.)

It says something that the most genuinely eloquent, unforced, and moving moment in the movie is Avner’s reaction to his infant daughter back in Brooklyn saying "Dada" on the phone. Home is where the heart of Munich is. The screenwriters have loaded the story with references to home, and made it the McGuffin for the widening gyre of violence. Maybe this is what attracted Spielberg to the project: E.T. wanted to go home, and so does everyone else, including people who haven’t got one. I suppose Spielberg thought pointing this out would suggest a common ground on which these feuds could be settled, and sharpen the sense of waste and futility of the struggle.

But "home" really is one thing coming from a muppet in a kiddie picture, and another coming from adult commandoes on a blood-hunt. This is not a political but a dramatic observation. In the context of what actually happens in Munich, the endless talk among the counter-terrorists and their contacts of home -- and of morality, ethics, and nearly everything else more exalted than munitions and procedure -- is revealed to be absurd, and the sentimental gestures that inflate the movie are all a con. The team’s Mossad handler is very clear-eyed (not to say correct) about the whole business -- when Avner confronts him about the reciprocal nature of violence, he shrugs, "Why should I cut my nails? They’re only going to grow back again." Did none of the other team members ever consider this point of view, either to adopt or reject, before joining the mission?

I had many of the same reactions. I knew more about Avner's wife and mother than any of the other members of the assassination team. Not everything should be told through the lens of family. I don't care if your parents were the greatest people in the world, you can talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict without referring to them. This movie isn't a prayer for peace, it's a prayer for a deeper filmmaker.

Oh yeah, and it ends with a shot of the Twin Towers. Nice and subtle.