Munich

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
I saw it and boy is it intense. Defenitly not for kids to see. gruesome scene.
 
Well there two different kind of films. For me Schindler's List is still the greatest film ever made.
 
I still cant believe The new Bond is blond. (Guy playing bond is in this film)
 
I have seen some pretty heavy criticism of the portayal of the hit team as morally torn with a few experienced individuals talking about the operation as a justified retaliation against murderers. Also that the matching of the Israeli victims to the killing of terrorists creates a false moral equivalence between terrorism and fighting terrorism.

That said I have been looking forward to this film and even though after doing a some reading on the source material it seems to be fiction built around a grain of truth it has a decent cast and I like a good assassination film (fyi The Day of the Jackal :up: )
 
I'm a very emotional person who was scared to watch both "Schindler's List" and "The Passion". I'm not sure "Municih" is my kind of movie, I like historical movies but "Pride and Prejudice" is more my cup of tea. I don't doubt that Spielberg is going to at least deserve an Oscar for this one, however. I'm sure it's an excellent movie that poses some serious questions about the whole concept of revenge.
 
I've seen it. It is very intense, very thought provoking and very depressing when you consider that these events took place 30+ years ago in a conflict that already had some history to it and then you realize that they aren't much closer to a true solution to the problem today than they were then.
 
Amazing, powerful film. Especially in light of the context we see it in in 2005/6, maybe that was Steven Spielberg's intention. The book it is based on is called Vengeance, if anyone's interested in reading it.


"Every man we killed has been replaced by someone worse"
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
Amazing, powerful film. Especially in light of the context we see it in in 2005/6, maybe that was Steven Spielberg's intention. The book it is based on is called Vengeance, if anyone's interested in reading it.


"Every man we killed has been replaced by someone worse"
Click to expand...

i believe that was a rather large intention on the part of spielberg, esp. considering the final image he leaves us with...

it does raise some very thought provoking quesitons, while not really providing any true answers... like the quote you gave... "every man we killed has been replaced by someone worse."

that is very much going on today as well... but are we wrong in doing it? it never really tries to answer that question... it really only shows the incredible hulk's struggle with that very issue nearly driving him insaine.

i like when movies make you think, make you wonder, leave you satisfied yet still with questions. spielberg hath certainly made up for war of the worlds :)tsk: )with this one.

:up::up:



as for those who are afraid because of the violence... i believe some of the posters here have over-stated the violence just a bit. there are a few gruesome scenes but it is hardly the most violent movie i've ever seen. it's on task with your average war movie as far as blood and gore goes. the opening of saving private ryan was worse, so if you saw that, you can see this.
 
It was an amazing movie, just riveting from the moment it started.

Originally posted by Headache in a Suitcase
as for those who are afraid because of the violence... i believe some of the posters here have over-stated the violence just a bit. there are a few gruesome scenes but it is hardly the most violent movie i've ever seen. it's on task with your average war movie as far as blood and gore goes. the opening of saving private ryan was worse, so if you saw that, you can see this.
Click to expand...

I agree with you, Headache. I would say it isn't even nearly as violent as your average war movie. Maybe I am just de-sensitized or something but I did not find it difficult to watch.
 
Last edited:
A_Wanderer said:
I have seen some pretty heavy criticism of the portayal of the hit team as morally torn with a few experienced individuals talking about the operation as a justified retaliation against murderers. Also that the matching of the Israeli victims to the killing of terrorists creates a false moral equivalence between terrorism and fighting terrorism.
Click to expand...

So what is right? What you heard? ? /\


or

What this guy thinks?
"Spielberg is pandering to the Jewish state" \/


Attack planner blasts 'Munich'
From Reuters

December 28, 2005

The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.

The Hollywood filmmaker has called "Munich," which dramatizes the 1972 raid and Israel's reprisals against members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, his "prayer for peace."

Abu Daoud planned the Munich attack on behalf of PLO splinter group Black September, but he did not take part and is not featured in the film. He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller and accused Spielberg of pandering to the Jewish state.

"Spielberg showed the movie to widows of the Israeli victims, but he neglected the families of Palestinian victims," said Daoud, who has not seen the film. "How many Palestinian civilians were killed before and after Munich?"
Click to expand...
 
just saw it. very good.

i thought it would have benefited from being 30 minutes shorter, and it seemed a bit confused -- 1/2 a meditative film on the nature of violence, 1/2 a rip-roaring espionage thriller.

it is very violent, but i never found it gratuitous. except for one scene that i won't mention, though if you've seen it i think you can guess, but i suppose that scene was to demonstrate the pointlessness of revenge killing.

eric bana was outstanding.

i felt it had a rather typical American left-of-center viewpoint -- supportive of Israel's right to exist, and therefore to defend itself, yet fully acknolwedges the fact that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

definitely one of the best films i've seen this year, but i'm still a little irritated by the fact that i think it could have been even better.

stunning final shot, though.
 
i think the scene you refer to is on the houseboat?

i do not think it is left of center

i found many scenes thought provoking


i think it is pro- Israel

i am glad Speilberg made it
with his track record they can not call him anti-Semite
because it does not portray all Arabs as soulless, homicidal killers with no provocation

the murdered athletes and hostage takers/ killers are not put on an equal footing as I have heard many suggest
 
Roger Ebert's review

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051222/REVIEWS/51214004

"Steven Spielberg's "Munich" is an act of courage and conscience. The director of "Schindler's List," the founder of the Shoah Foundation, the most successful and visible Jew in the world of film, has placed himself between Israel and the Palestinians, looked at decades of terrorism and reprisal, and had one of his characters conclude, "There is no peace at the end of this." Spielberg's film has been called an attack on the Palestinians and he has been rebuked as "no friend of Israel." By not taking sides, he has taken both sides.

The film has deep love for Israel, and contains a heartfelt moment when a mother reminds her son why the state had to be founded: "We had to take it because no one would ever give it to us. Whatever it took, whatever it takes, we have a place on earth at last." With this statement, I believe, Spielberg agrees to the bottom of his soul. Yet his film questions Israel's policy of swift and full retribution for every attack."

........"Spielberg is using the effective form of a thriller to argue that loops of mutual reprisal have led to endless violence in the Middle East, Ireland, India and Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, Africa, and on and on. Miraculous, that the pariah nation of South Africa was the one place where irreconcilable enemies found a way to peacefully share the same land together.

At crucial times in a nation’s history, its best friends may be its critics. Spielberg did not have to make “Munich,” but he needed to. With this film he has dramatically opened a wider dialogue, helping to make the inarguable into the debatable. As a thriller, “Munich” is efficient, absorbing, effective. As an ethical argument, it is haunting. And its questions are not only for Israel but for any nation that believes it must compromise its values to defend them."

Ebert's interview w/ Steven Spielberg



http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051225/PEOPLE/512250311

"He repeated that he was wounded by the charge that he is "no friend of Israel" because his film asks questions about Israeli policies. "This film is no more anti-Israel than a similar film which offered criticism of America is anti-America," he said. "Criticism is a form of love. I love America, and I'm critical of this administration. I love Israel, and I ask questions. Those who ask no questions may not be a country's best friends."

Is the Middle East without a solution? I asked. Will there be an endless cycle of terror and reprisal? What about the startling fact that Israel's entrenched political enemies, Ariel Sharon from the right, and Shimon Peres from the left, have resigned from their parties and joined in a new party that says it is seeking a path to peace?

"What I believe," Spielberg said, "is that there will be peace between Israelis and Palestinians in our lifetimes."
 
Last edited:
Great, great movie.

I think those people who wanted to find fault with it, went in looking for faults and found them. There was no suggestion of moral equivalence at all.

There are obvious and hard truths that were stated in it, though. Like the Palestinian terrorist, Ali, who said we have children and they will have more children and we will have so many that we can wait forever. Another powerful thing was when Avner said to him that the world sees Palestinians as animals because of the terrorist acts they commit, Ali concurs that may be the case, but goes on to say that eventually the world will ask themselves whether the conditions in the cages contributed to them becoming the animals they are.

The fear of the Israeli hostages, their vicious murders, the country stunned at more Jews being killed with impunity in Germany, it was so well told. I don't understand why anyone would slap the movie with accusations of anti-Semitism which have been hinted in more than one review. Disappointing.
 
Anyone see the documentary "One Day in September"? It really explained what happened that day. A poorly planned rescue leading to a horrific conclusion.
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
Roger Ebert's review

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051222/REVIEWS/51214004

"Steven Spielberg's "Munich" is an act of courage and conscience. The director of "Schindler's List," the founder of the Shoah Foundation, the most successful and visible Jew in the world of film, has placed himself between Israel and the Palestinians, looked at decades of terrorism and reprisal, and had one of his characters conclude, "There is no peace at the end of this." Spielberg's film has been called an attack on the Palestinians and he has been rebuked as "no friend of Israel." By not taking sides, he has taken both sides.

The film has deep love for Israel, and contains a heartfelt moment when a mother reminds her son why the state had to be founded: "We had to take it because no one would ever give it to us. Whatever it took, whatever it takes, we have a place on earth at last." With this statement, I believe, Spielberg agrees to the bottom of his soul. Yet his film questions Israel's policy of swift and full retribution for every attack."

........"Spielberg is using the effective form of a thriller to argue that loops of mutual reprisal have led to endless violence in the Middle East, Ireland, India and Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, Africa, and on and on. Miraculous, that the pariah nation of South Africa was the one place where irreconcilable enemies found a way to peacefully share the same land together.

At crucial times in a nation’s history, its best friends may be its critics. Spielberg did not have to make “Munich,” but he needed to. With this film he has dramatically opened a wider dialogue, helping to make the inarguable into the debatable. As a thriller, “Munich” is efficient, absorbing, effective. As an ethical argument, it is haunting. And its questions are not only for Israel but for any nation that believes it must compromise its values to defend them."

Ebert's interview w/ Steven Spielberg



http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051225/PEOPLE/512250311

"He repeated that he was wounded by the charge that he is "no friend of Israel" because his film asks questions about Israeli policies. "This film is no more anti-Israel than a similar film which offered criticism of America is anti-America," he said. "Criticism is a form of love. I love America, and I'm critical of this administration. I love Israel, and I ask questions. Those who ask no questions may not be a country's best friends."

Is the Middle East without a solution? I asked. Will there be an endless cycle of terror and reprisal? What about the startling fact that Israel's entrenched political enemies, Ariel Sharon from the right, and Shimon Peres from the left, have resigned from their parties and joined in a new party that says it is seeking a path to peace?

"What I believe," Spielberg said, "is that there will be peace between Israelis and Palestinians in our lifetimes."
Click to expand...

Thanks, Mrs. Springsteen :up: Roger Ebert is perhaps the only critic I really admire...great interview. I may check this out tomorrow.
 
trevster2k said:
Anyone see the documentary "One Day in September"? It really explained what happened that day. A poorly planned rescue leading to a horrific conclusion.
Click to expand...
i saw this in the summer while the cbc was on strike and showing endless reruns of 'the passionate eye'. i found it to be a riveting documentary.

i just got back from seeing 'munich' and am still trying to wrap my head around it. i'm still wondering whether that final shot was spielberg's way of saying the aftermath of munich is somehow analogous to the situation america is finding itself in.

also, i found that i, as a viewer, didn't get a lot of satisfaction from seeing the hit squad hit their marks. i'm not sure i was supposed to. perhaps spielberg was trying to convey the meaninglessness of all the bloodshed?

i think i need to let this sink in a bit more.
 
Terrorism: Confusing cause, effect

By Alan Dershowitz | January 16, 2006

Whatever anyone might think of the artistic merits of Steven Spielberg's new film ''Munich," no one should expect an accurate portrayal of historical events.

''Munich" portrays a squad of Mossad agents, led by a fictional character named Avner Kauffman, tracking down and killing the Black September terrorists who had perpetrated the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. As the movie progresses, Avner becomes increasingly disillusioned with his mission.

His chief concern is that counterterrorism only incites more terrorism, which in turn provokes reprisals. The last shot in the movie rests on the World Trade Center, suggesting a connection between the Middle East's ''cycle of violence" and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Deepak Chopra wrote that the movie ''draws a trail that leads directly to the attacks of 9/11."

The trouble with this ''cycle of violence" perspective is that it confuses cause and effect. The period immediately preceding Munich was plagued by airline terrorism, including the blowing up of a Swiss airliner that killed all 47 passengers and crew, and dozens of deadly hijackings. Palestinian hijackings were successful because even when the hijackers were captured, they were quickly released as soon as Palestinian terrorists hijacked another airplane.

This long pattern of high-publicity, low-risk hijackings is what encouraged Black September to up the ante by infiltrating the Olympic Village in Munich.

As I wrote in my book ''Why Terrorism Works," ''Based on the reaction to international terrorism over the previous four years, the terrorists planning the Munich operation could expect to succeed in attracting the world's attention and be relatively certain that if any of the terrorists were captured, they would not be held for long."

In short: Terrorism works because it is successful, and success begets repetition.

In the final scene of the movie, Avner asks his Mossad handler why Israel killed the Black September terrorists instead of arresting them. The answer, never given in the film, is that the arrest method had failed. Arrested terrorists were never tried and imprisoned for long. Between 1968 and 1975, 204 terrorists were arrested outside of the Middle East. By the close of 1975, only three were still in prison. George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a Marxist terrorist group responsible for some of the Palestinians' most brutal mass killing), noted that Europe's refusal to imprison terrorists meant that, when it came to plotting hijackings and bombing, ''success [was] 100 percent assured."

Take the example of PFLP hijacker Leila Khaled. In 1969, Khaled hijacked a TWA plane. She was arrested but soon released. Only a year later, in September 1970, she led another hijacking operation, this time on an El Al flight to New York. Khaled was held in a British prison where, by her own account, she was treated ''as if I were an official state guest." The British released her -- after her second hijacking! -- before she had spent even one month in jail.

Both Israel and America pressured the British to extradite Khaled to Israel to stand trial. England refused, aligning itself with every other European country that had refused to extradite terrorists for trial in Israel.

And it is not only Israel whose extradition requests have been utterly frustrated. In 1985, for example, Italy allowed Achille Lauro mastermind hijacker Abu Abbas to flee safely to Tunisia, rather than sending him to the United States to face charges of killing American tourist Leon Klinghoffer.

The best evidence of why the arrest method advocated by ''Munich" would not work was provided by Black September's own demands in Munich -- that Israel free more than 200 imprisoned terrorists. Israel understood that releasing terrorists would encourage future terrorism. Without European cooperation, Israel stood little chance of curbing international terrorism. Sure enough, Germany released the surviving Black September terrorists less than two months after Munich, when Palestinian terrorists ''hijacked" a Lufthansa plane.

(According to the senior aide to Germany's interior minister, it is ''probably true" that the ''hijacking" was orchestrated as part of a German-Palestinian scheme to free the terrorists.) It was the German decision to free these killers to kill again that strengthened Golda Meir's resolve to take the steps necessary to protect her citizens, but you wouldn't know that from watching ''Munich."

Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. His latest book is ''The Case For Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved."
 
Finally made it to see this one. What a powerful, heavy, sad, beautiful, bloody film!

Eric Bana's performance is even more beautiful than he is, and that's saying something.
:wink: :drool:

Watching Bana's character descend into such a tense level of paranoia was powerful.

In a curious way, the movie was about the logistics of killing, if you will. What if the bomb is too strong? How will we sneak in?

Aside from one or two, "Steve, you didn't need to clobber me on the head with the Theme" moments, the direction was lovely. You really remembered why Speilberg is Speilberg. Some lovely shots and powerful parallelism between Bana's character and Ali, a young Islamic radical Bana happens to encourter on one of his execution missions. Ali thinks he's a German Red, allowing Bana to question him on why he fights as he does for Palestine. Ali gives a lovely little speech about home (which, as a new father, is basically what Bana is fighting for, too). Ali also says a line that Bana later echoes, expressing that it doesn't matter it it takes gernations, eventually "we'll win".
:|

That said, the Isralie characters were much more 3-dimensional than any of the Arab/Palestinian characters, a real flaw of the film.

I have to disagree with those who say this film creates a "moral equivelence". Its critique of Israeli state policy is hard to miss.

As I remember--and this was a really potent final sucker-punch for me--the final shot of the film, as Bana and his wife move to NYC towards the end of the movie, is of the NYC skyline. Of course, this is mid-70s and the WTC towers were standing. This being Speilberg, I can't believe that was a mistake.
:sad: Is that what you meant, Irvine?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Janet H
  • Sticky
Forum Update - We're back! Ask your questions here.
2
Replies
36
Views
2K
Popmartijn
Popmartijn
C
Hello from the Twin Cities!
Replies
3
Views
780
trevgreg
trevgreg
I
2024 shows
Replies
26
Views
2K
DeVaul
DeVaul
Snowlock
Sphere "app" and Apple Wallet
Replies
10
Views
2K
Snowlock
Snowlock
M
Ticketmaster app
Replies
3
Views
495
rosephile
R

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom