MUNICH

From a man-eating shark rising from the serenity of New England coastal waters to the possibility of alien life converging upon us from the skies, director Steven Spielberg has created many of the most sensational moments in cinematic history.   But what  lies at the center of each bombastic, FX riddled telling is simple.  From Jaws to War of the World's, The Color Purple to Schindler's List, Spielberg's theme throughout twenty years of awe inspiring filmmaking has always been man's inhumanity to man. 

The newly released Munich is at its core one of Spielberg's most complex investigations of man's violent transgressions against one another as Spielberg takes us back to the horror of the 1972 Olympic games.  Anyone who came of age in the 70's remembers the nightmare image of a masked Palestinian gunman standing on the balcony of the Olympic Village apartment where nine Israeli athletes were being held hostage, and two had already been slain.  

Rather than restrict the telling to the massacre itself, in which the remaining nine athletes, one German policeman, and five of the eight Palestinian gunman were killed,  Spielberg, supported brilliantly by the storytelling abilities of playwright  Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Ali), follows the historical and personal fallout in its aftermath.    

Opening with the disclaimer that the film is "inspired by actual events," Spielberg, Kushner, and Roth are then free to reinvent some of the more titillating and violent  moments of 70's espionage films.  Dark alleyways, cobble-stoned European streets,  shadowy presences, tangled and questionable alliances, pay homage to such classics as The French Connection, Marathon Man, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Odessa Files, both in story and in cinematic style.   In many ways Munich is as much a return to the history of such film making as it is a shattering and emotionally charged memorial to the September 5th, 1972 tragedy and its victims.

The five righteous assassins sent out by the Israeli government to avenge the deaths of the Olympiads are a storyteller's mixed bag of the skilled and the novitiate.  Eric Bana is Avner, our hero, an untried Mossad solider, once bodyguard to Prime Minister Golda Meir.  German actor Hans Zischler is the veteran enforcer who having already descended into the heart of darkness is always willing to go deeper.  Actor Daniel Craig, the new Bond, is the blue-eyed, German-Israeli, Carl, who comes to represent the dedication and the daring of the operation.  In Kushner and Spielberg's hands,  Carl's declaration, "The only blood that matters to me is Jewish blood," becomes a point of necessary bravado and pride as well as a point of departure as to the subjective nature of justice. 

Writer-director Mathieu Kassovitz ((Gothika) is toy maker cum mad bomber, Robert, and Ciaran Hines is the clean-up man with a conscious who begins to question the righteousness of the operation as bodies   begin to pile up and acts of terrorism and retaliation seem endless. The role of Prime Minister Golda Meir is handled with impeccable distinction of voice and manner by the venerable Lynn Cohen, and Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush is the Israeli operative who is the team's only link, adversary, and savior in an operation that is not officially an operation.  Gila Almagor as Avner's wayward mother, is riveting to watch.  Much of the film is based upon George Jonas' book Vengeance which is purported to be the true story of Mossad agent Juval Aviv, who as a part of Operation Wrath of God or Mitzvah Elohim, was sent out to track down and kill the remaining Palestinian terrorists and the PLO orchestrators responsible for the Munich kidnapping and massacre.  

Many of Jonas' details regarding the manner in which assassinations were assigned and how the terrorists were tracked have been disputed by Aaron J. Klein in his book, Striking Back: The Munich Olympics Massacre & Israel's Deadly Response.  Those involved on both sides of the conflict find fault with Spielberg's interpretation of events and the philosophies and grievances which shaped them.  Spielberg, and writers Roth and Kushner, strive to humanize all involved.  There are moments of demonization for both sides as well.   It may be the French, in the aftermath of our own September 2001, tragedy, and the international feuding which followed (remember Freedom Fries), who may have the more legitimate gripe in regards to the film.   Once again they are cast as instigators of war and terror, who profit from while never fully committing to unfolding world events.   Actor Mathieu Almaric is a slippery and commanding presence as the French information gatherer, Louis, and Michael Lonsdale as his Papa, the head of the family business of espionage, is as shady and endearing a character the movies have seen since Sidney Greenstreet.