An Apolitical Comment

Rating: Null/10 (20 January 2007)

Update on the below: Can no one comment on my query about this weird, baffling indoor mist or fog that appears in nearly all of Spielberg's films????
The merits and weaknesses, as well as the political complexities of this film, have been chewed over and plowed up for 71 pages of IMDb, and I do not have the time to read any more of them. Since this film is now being aired on HBO hereabouts, I'm presuming there will be 2007 comments now made. This is one of them, but I'm focusing only on one personal objection to nearly every one of Spielberg's films. Perhaps somewhere in the above 71 pages, this objection has also been raised; my apologies if so.
What I'm commenting on is the fact that in so many INTERIOR scenes of his films, including MUNICH, there is this foglike miasma drifting past the people and the furniture. Nobody ever comments on this fog. Nobody seems to notice it. There is always some source of light illuminating this interior fog, usually the sun slanting through the windows. It's present in ET, AI, COLOR PURPLE, SCHINDLER'S LIST, on and on ad nauseum, and now in MUNICH. It occurs in three interior settings of Munich. I am baffled as to what Spielberg is trying to convey with this annoying technique. Every time I witness it, regardless of the nature of his film, I am distracted from the rest of the scene. This cannot be the singular decision of Spielberg's cinematographer; it has to be at the director's order. Why? Were this dusty mist occurring in just his sci fi films, well OK. But it isn't.