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Munich Review...
Jul. 9th, 2006 08:21 pmJust finished watching the film Munich by Stephen Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth and starring Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig and Ciarian Hinds.
The film is a thoughtful depiction of Israel's response to what happened in the Munich Olympics in 1976, when 11 Isralie athelets were murdered by terrorists. It is also a comment on the US's response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. While the film is meant to be a balanced account, according to the director's introduction to it on the DVD, it reminds me a great deal of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness which Apocalypse Now was based. The story is about a family man, trained in Isralie intelligence who is given the assignment to pull together a team and go out and assaignate the people responsible. Much like Martin Sheen's character in Apocalypse Now is assigned to go after crazy Marlon Brando, who has decided to combat evil with evil.
Watching the film, a couple of things hit me - one, we really do not learn from our past history and mistakes. two - combating evil with evil only creates more evil. three - when you look into the abyss it does look back into you or rather when you decide to fight monsters, you should be careful you do not turn into one yourself.
But mostly, what hit me...and this goes back to a conversation I had last night about what is and is not meaningful. Is analyzing a tv show meaningful? Is there a point to spending time writing essays on one? Is there a point to discussing it? What is important? During this conversation, my friend talks about how she met her husband debating politics. Politics. Nationalities. And then I watched Munich, and all the way through the film people are killing one another to perserve a homeland, a nation for their culture, their ethnicity, their nationality. A piece of land. A dry, arid, piece of land. And I remembered, when I was writing essays on BTVS I would get responses from people around the world, all nationalities. And when these people responded - it wasn't until maybe the fifth or sixth response that I could tell what country they were from, what race or ethnicity they hailed from, what their religion was, what their nationality was - sometimes I never knew. So I'm wondering maybe, watching this film, that we place far too much importance on things like race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation - so much importance that we are willing to kill people who don't fit into the category that we fit into - and we justify the violence with the same arguments - it is in order to "protect" our group from the "others". After a while I lose track - all I see is a bunch of people who seem intent on killing one another until there is no one left but two little boys fighting it out over a piece of land a la Cain and Able.
For all our religious studies...mythology...analysis of tv shows and books and films, not to mention our own bloody history, you'd think we'd have learned by now that an eye for an eye just does not work. And what nationality you are? Well it's less important than analyzing a tv show on the internet. After all we all bleed the same, open us up, we all have the same organs, the same brain matter, each of our souls and personalities is different. We are human. The boundaries and differences between us? Are the ones we've chosen to create with increasingly horrendous results.
Not saying one should not be proud of where they come from, or their heritage, just saying that one should not use it as a reason to kill and destroy someone else.
At least that's what I got out of watching the film.
It is a good film. Tough to watch. Quite long. Violent. And well-written. Possibly one of Spielberg's better films. He pulls back from the sentimentality that underlines his other dramas.
Lets the subject matter speak for itself without too much editorializing. The editorializing that is there comes in at the end. Is it heavy handed? Possibly, since I did feel this overwhelming desire to curse the dead Golda Meyer who sends the men out to do the assaignations. Outside of that, not so much.
The film is a thoughtful depiction of Israel's response to what happened in the Munich Olympics in 1976, when 11 Isralie athelets were murdered by terrorists. It is also a comment on the US's response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. While the film is meant to be a balanced account, according to the director's introduction to it on the DVD, it reminds me a great deal of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness which Apocalypse Now was based. The story is about a family man, trained in Isralie intelligence who is given the assignment to pull together a team and go out and assaignate the people responsible. Much like Martin Sheen's character in Apocalypse Now is assigned to go after crazy Marlon Brando, who has decided to combat evil with evil.
Watching the film, a couple of things hit me - one, we really do not learn from our past history and mistakes. two - combating evil with evil only creates more evil. three - when you look into the abyss it does look back into you or rather when you decide to fight monsters, you should be careful you do not turn into one yourself.
But mostly, what hit me...and this goes back to a conversation I had last night about what is and is not meaningful. Is analyzing a tv show meaningful? Is there a point to spending time writing essays on one? Is there a point to discussing it? What is important? During this conversation, my friend talks about how she met her husband debating politics. Politics. Nationalities. And then I watched Munich, and all the way through the film people are killing one another to perserve a homeland, a nation for their culture, their ethnicity, their nationality. A piece of land. A dry, arid, piece of land. And I remembered, when I was writing essays on BTVS I would get responses from people around the world, all nationalities. And when these people responded - it wasn't until maybe the fifth or sixth response that I could tell what country they were from, what race or ethnicity they hailed from, what their religion was, what their nationality was - sometimes I never knew. So I'm wondering maybe, watching this film, that we place far too much importance on things like race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation - so much importance that we are willing to kill people who don't fit into the category that we fit into - and we justify the violence with the same arguments - it is in order to "protect" our group from the "others". After a while I lose track - all I see is a bunch of people who seem intent on killing one another until there is no one left but two little boys fighting it out over a piece of land a la Cain and Able.
For all our religious studies...mythology...analysis of tv shows and books and films, not to mention our own bloody history, you'd think we'd have learned by now that an eye for an eye just does not work. And what nationality you are? Well it's less important than analyzing a tv show on the internet. After all we all bleed the same, open us up, we all have the same organs, the same brain matter, each of our souls and personalities is different. We are human. The boundaries and differences between us? Are the ones we've chosen to create with increasingly horrendous results.
Not saying one should not be proud of where they come from, or their heritage, just saying that one should not use it as a reason to kill and destroy someone else.
At least that's what I got out of watching the film.
It is a good film. Tough to watch. Quite long. Violent. And well-written. Possibly one of Spielberg's better films. He pulls back from the sentimentality that underlines his other dramas.
Lets the subject matter speak for itself without too much editorializing. The editorializing that is there comes in at the end. Is it heavy handed? Possibly, since I did feel this overwhelming desire to curse the dead Golda Meyer who sends the men out to do the assaignations. Outside of that, not so much.
