International thriller, sober and adult

Rating: 9/10 (6 January 2007)

Many viewers will remember the events at Munich as they unfolded. I remember Jim McKay announcing the deaths on television. Others should know about it just by keeping up with recent history. For those who don't know about it, Spielberg gives us a summary of what happened at the beginning of the film, mostly through TV news clips. The shootout at Munich airport is outlined in the first ten or fifteen minutes, after which the story turns to the organization of the Israeli response.
My reaction was one of pleasant surprise because, by all the laws of commercial narrative, that horrifying, violent event should have been saved for the climax. (Eg., "In Cold Blood.") Not only should it have been saved, but the deaths should be gone into in gory detail with exploding heads and mushroom-like fireballs. And here was Spielberg treating us like grown ups, trusting the audience enough not to feel the terror of those moments must be put on the stage and spelled out.
As it turns out, Spielberg, now a charter member of the Hollywood community, couldn't entirely disregard the demands of conventional structure, and we get an explicit flashback -- brief and powerful, but still unnecessary -- near the end, and while the protagonist is making love to his wife. Fantasizing about a bloody tragedy while making love is probably not what most people do, depending on one's partner, I suppose.
The rest of the film is far above the usual standards of the international action genre. There is in fact no more blood and guts than is called for. John Williams' music tells us more than what we need to hear about suffering, but the photography and location shooting by Janusz Kaminski are nearly flawless. The lead player, Eric Bana, not only performs well but looks the part of someone plucked out of an office and suddenly transformed into a dedicated assassin. His most routine expression changes from boyish surprise to dismal disillusion at the end.
As a director, Spielberg doesn't make a false step. The action scenes are sometimes a little confusing but it seems to make them all the more effective. The most graphic death on screen is that of an attractive young Dutch woman who has murdered (or caused to be murdered) on of the team of assassins. Naked, shot in the chest with two small bullets, dripping blood from her lips, she slowly walks away and fondles her cat absent-mindedly.
The tale, "inspired by real events," is presented with all its moral ambiguity intact. Guilt is brought up, but only briefly, and there is only one speech (by an Arab nationalist) that sounds written deliberately for the screen. But the script is full of observations that violate everyday standards of deference. One of the Israeli assassins backs off on a killing, saying, "Thousands of years of suffering doesn't make you virtuous. We are supposed to be righteous. That is what I was taught." So much for the power of victimhood. Just because you've been stomped on by history -- abused as a child, persecuted by the state, unjustifiably blamed for something, born with some socially devalued characteristic like dark skin -- it doesn't necessarily make your actions or your views morally superior to others'. That's a pretty bold statement, the kind that can be made only by Jews, blacks, abused wives, or displaced Palestinians.
I was grateful too, for the way the film ended. The conventions require the demoralized hero to join his family in Brooklyn, sulk for a while, then return to his homeland while triumphant music swells in the background and his mother greets him with a hug. It doesn't happen. That's what I mean when I say the film is "adult." There are higher authorities than the bureaucracy one works for.
There are no easy ethical answers because who knows why we fight and kill one another? Each of us has a personal excuse for what we do, and groups have collective excuses for what they do. Conflict might be based on ethnicity, religion, race, pride, or territory. And if we could somehow take away all THOSE reasons for murdering one another I'm afraid some others would emerge as overnight replacement. "Your grandfather once insulted my grandfather." By now, Spielberg has made a couple of genuinely good movies, and his talent is on display in this one.