2005 Directed by Steven Spielberg
During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.
85
A world without reason - Spielberg, from the first 'revenge' murder, lingers on the faces of both sides. In each account, it doesn't get easier, but the motions become familiar, and Spielberg's dollies, zooms, one-ers etc. are jolting in a formulaic sense; moral muddiness in a constant loop, rising and climaxing, blurring the lines of routine and passion. Basically two hours of Spielberg showing off and yet he confines his skill to a narrative of accomplishment inherently tied to atrocity, with each off-the-cuff set-piece concluding with panache while the images spill with blood and fire, silence and annihilated bodies. That the film's distinct focus on sex - the characters' lack of it and the safety it can provide - is perverted by violence and trauma speaks to the collective pain which clouds up and rains down during the simplest, most primal of moments between people. When bloodshed is currency, there's no other way to pay.
A provocative illustration of the aftermath of 1972 Munich massacre, a tricky meditation on morality & arguably the most controversial film of Steven Spielberg's filmmaking career, Munich is an intimately crafted, meticulously detailed & technically sound cinema that dares to examine both sides of a single coin yet ends up being an unsatisfying, convoluted mess.
Based on the infamous incident at 1972 Olympics in Munich where 11 Israeli athletes were slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists, the story of Munich follows the aftermath of that event and focuses on the secret retaliation program carried out by the Israeli government to track down & kill the alleged members of Black September; the group responsible for the Munich massacre.
Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film opens with…
There was probably some fear before the release of Munich that Spielberg would turn this into in a heavily slanted pro-Jewish take on the events that took place 30 years before, which in the end was skilfully avoided by the director. This is a damning indictment of both sides involved in a conflict that continues to rage. Two peoples destined to forever strike and counter strike against each other.
The mood cast by Spielberg is a sombre one encasing these men who work in the shadows under muted lighting. Each of the actors quickly claim the spirit of their characters allowing the narrative to flow smoothly from the opening incident that created this reactive mission to the introduction of the…
"Every one of the ones who died, died wanting this."
everyone understands the mere futility of revenge but this wants to know how to live truthfully, even just to sit down to dinner or sleep with your wife, alongside the collective guilt of every violent act, if that is perhaps itself a moral compromise.
Most early-nineties kids, like myself, grew up knowing one director by name: Steven Spielberg. ‘Jurassic Park’ was released in my year of birth and I have naturally seen it dozen of times. Lately, the man has entered a bit of a downfall (I don’t even have to see ‘War Horse’ to know how much of a disappointment it is and ‘Lincoln’ wasn’t my thing either). In the mid-2000s though, a Spielberg release would still be anticipated with enthusiasm, certainly when the attempt encompassed a nearly three hours long epic about Operation Wrath of God, which - going by the title - sounds sensational already. That excitement indeed translates well onto the screen during the recruitment of the assassination team that…
Spielberg is one of those directors that crafts every movie he does in a certain way and they always come out beautiful (sept from kingdom of the crystal skull that came out like a fart) and Munich is another one of them and I also take back all the shit I gave Eric bana in the past about hulk I'm sorry.
I'm turning into quite the late-career Spielberg fanatic! It's wild to me that for so many he is still known as a (rather uncomplicatedly) sentimental director of feel-good entertainment when he has movies like this, A.I., and War of the Worlds under his belt. Every assassination is so incredibly disturbing––even for the film's masterful set-piece execution, there is no glory in violence here. I've struggled with some of Spiely's more explicitly political movies of late, but this meets the challenge of its weighty moral dilemma unflinchingly.(Bridge of Spies would've done well to follow Munich's lead in that regard) I know there are some that object to what they read as a sort of both-sides-ism, but I don't really agree; I…
Notes:
- I admire Jews because even after all the bullshit they've been through, they're the most family like tribe in the world. I could have done with more team dynamics in this film that echo that feeling even further.
- I still don't know how to feel about Spielberg holding out on showing us just how much time was passing, until we see how much the baby grew, at the very end.
I understand what this movie was saying but it's not my type of movie wasn't that interesting to me. 6/10
Der Titel verwirrt in der Tat, man könnte erwarten hier eine Nachstellung des furchtbaren Geiseldramas präsentiert zu bekommen - statt dessen gibt's das Massaker nur in ein paar Rückblenden (die trotzdem ihre Wirkung nicht verfehlen) und der Film beschäftigt sich mit den Folgen. Der Weg den Spielberg dabei einschlägt ist aber verwirrend: er will eigentlich die Ereignisse aufzeigen und im Grunde mahnen das Gewalt eben Gegengewalt erzeugt (ein Kritiker nannte den Film "ein Gebet für Frieden"), benutzt aber dabei sehr viele Thrillerelemente um den Film unterhaltsam zu machen. Letztlich ist es ein düsterer, deprimierender Agentenfilm geworden in dessen Mittelpunkt das Gewissen seiner Hauptfigur steht (Eric Bana bringt als gewissensgebeutelter Agent eine Superdarstellung) und der auf der Grundlage realer Ereignisse passiert…
A story that needed to be told.
"Munich" has been considered by many to be Steven Spielberg's most underrated film. It's the kind of film that we haven't really seen Spielberg tackle and Spielberg really shows respect to the event and doesn't try to paint the event in a certain way.
In an introduction on the blu-ray of the movie Spielberg talks about some of the indisputable facts from the book, "Vengence", which "Munich" is based on as well as explaing that this movie wasn't made to attack Israel which shows why you needed a director like Spielberg to handle this kind of movie with this kind of subject matter.
Eric Bana is strong as the lead in "Munich" I've…
There’s a lot of admirable things about this movie, BUT how do you make this great cast just so soo sooo boring.
En mi opinión la mejor película de Spielberg, curiosamente la más infravalorada
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