Admirably evenhanded, but ...

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2010)

The film Munich is fiction, although it's fiction based on fact. How much is fact and how much is fiction I don't know. But then there is also the important point that some fiction — honest fiction — can contain and convey as much truth as fact and that 'fact' is all too often something of a moveable feast: one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, a distinction which is relevant in Steven Spielberg's film Munich. The acts of terrorism it portrays, the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and the subsequent vengeance meted out by Israel, is so wholly horrifying that to talk of film as entertainment would be obscene. Thankfully, Spielberg is such an outstanding and sensitive filmmaker that at no point does one feel that Munich is in any way intended to entertain. He also attempts, and, I think, largely succeeds — despite himself being Jewish — to remain evenhanded. No one comes out of this smelling of roses, not the Palestinians, not the Israelis, not the shadowy French middlemen and not (their roles are oblique but by no means unimportant) the Soviet KGB and the US CIA, both cynically involving themselves for their own ends. And although of necessity any moral discussion of what the Palestinians do and how Israel reacts cannot in such a film be too detailed, Spielberg also, in my view, admirably remains neutral. As a 'document', although a fictional 'document', Munich gets the cigar. But as a film, I have various quibbles. Visually and narratively and in so many other ways Munich is never short of excellent. Spielberg as an almost innate gift and, for example, tension is organic and not racked up artificially, as is the way of some filmmakers, by all kinds of flammery backed up by some portenous score. The acting is also superb, especially that of — former Australian stand-up — Eric Bana. What rather jarred with me was the ease with which Bana and his group of assassins can move around with ease, can cause extreme havoc, yet are never troubled by the police or a country's secret service. Obviously, were this long film to spend any time at all establishing matters in all the many countries in which the assassins operate, then it would become even longer. But for me the fatal flaw is the shadowy Frenchmen who facilitate the assassins' work at every turn, locating targets, organising safe houses and the like and without whose assistance the assassins would never even get started. Only two of them have speaking roles, a father ('Pape') and his son 'Louis', although there are obviously far more of them. To put it bluntly, they play the role of deus ex machina (although they appear throughout the film rather than at then end to effect some kind of resolution) and without them Spielberg wouldn't have a film. These people are the real cynics, working for the best paymaster and even, it is more than suggested, working for both sides merely to make more money. There is a curious piece of cod philosophising by Papa in which he attempts to justify his cynical approach by suggesting that all governments are 'bastards', but this is such cartoonish stuff that it can hardly be taken seriously. But that is a criticism — and in my book a major criticism — of the 'film' Munich. There is, though, more to Munich than that, and I am prepared to accept that others might not share my sensitivity to such a detail. And that apart, Munch is an extraordinarily good film, not least because it is — my quibble apart — also an honest film.