One Man and the Vortex

Rating: 9/10 (17 January 2006)

This is a highly provocative film replete with graphic images and high tension. It is not an easy film to watch in very many ways. It has two dimensions to it - a political/religious conflict on the surface and a human conflict underneath. Spielberg takes on an incident of living history and delves beneath its 'black and white' news story veneer: the 1972 killings of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics.
I must be honest here and confess that I was too young to remember this incident first-hand and that my prime motivation for watching it was to see Spielberg's take on it (a la Schindler's List). Indeed at times this film got on a par with that previous film of his in terms of its intensity.
I thoroughly enjoyed Eric Bana's performance as Avi, the loyal, unassuming Mossad agent (whose wife is expecting their first child and who has visions of quietly providing for his family and really no further expectations or ambitions) who finds himself closeted in a room with generals, political officers, and even the Prime Minister and prevailed upon to accept a mission unlike any he could ever have imagined or expected: the hunting and assassinating of 11 Palestinian operatives who were each responsible for the Munich incident. He accepts because of his sense of obligation not just to the State of Israel but to the overall backdrop of the historical struggle and suffering of the Jewish People. The film is essentially about the transformation of Avi's world view and of the torment of his soul which result.
Avi's entering the wider conflict between Israeli and Palestinian and between Jew and Muslim even snags him and never lets him go. It is like a vortex from which he can never fully escape and Spielberg uses the transformation of Avi to illustrate the full repercussions of the wider conflict in human terms we can understand.
Poignant moments that really bring this out in the film are: - Golda Meir stating matter-of-factly that 'all civilizations at one time find themselves having to negotiate their values' and later solemnly concluding 'I have made the decision. The responsibility is mine.' - Ephraim casually declaring that Avi is officially 'unofficial' after signing himself into the ultra-secret netherworld of clandestine assassination - Hans? telling Avi that he is like those military men he has met who do the things asked of them - especially the dark things - 'on the run' thinking that it is all okay and that they are in control of their heads - another comrade telling Avi that 'righteousness' is what defines a Jew and that if it is lost so is the soul. - when he returns to Israel Avi is greeted by young Israeli soldiers as a hero even though he is stone-faced and utterly changed
The last scene was perhaps the best of all. In it Avi demands proof that the men he killed were involved in 'Munich' and Ephraim downplays the significance of such a necessity to the objectives that were reached. He juxtaposes the specific deed (the killings of the 11 men by Avi and his group of assassins) with the general endeavour (the future saving of the lives of Jews from the hands of Palestinian terrorists) and considers the giving of such proof irrelevant in the final analysis. Avi rejects this and finds that he has to turn his back on his homeland and remain in the United States. He defies Ephraim to put their faith as Jews and their personal working relationship above extremist political agendas:
"Break bread with me. Doesn't it say somewhere that if a Jew asks another into his home to break bread the other must come? Break bread with me, Ephraim." To which Ephraim replies blandly, "No." and walks away. Spielberg brings it home very nicely in this film.