Movie Review: MunichFollow

I went to see Munich a couple of days ago after reading that this is S. Spielberg's all-time best movie. I was prepared for a grand feast for the eyes, ears, and mind; after all, this is likely our generation's best director as evidenced by Saving Pvt. Ryan and Schindler's List.

While I wasn't disappointed in the movie, it was not his best effort by half. Those two movies I referenced above are far superior in scope, cinematography, and plot. The acting was terrific and the storyline moving, but in the end the movie succumbed to the very myopic stigmatism that afflicts the Hollywood political world view.

Don't misunderstand me, Spielberg has some very valid points, but the premise of his (and the rest of the left leaning picture industry) film is utterly inaccurate based on an ignorance of the region's history and international law. One of the points he portrayed very well is the psychological and emotional cost of being a weapon of the state, a toll that is brought upon our protagonist by being unacknowledged and isolated from the protection of the very country he has been charged to avenge. The second, and more important point I believe, was to humanise the Palestinians and display them in the same context as the Israelis before Israel became a nation.

This, however, is where Steven Spielberg widely misses the mark. His (and the Palestinians in the movie) argument is that terrorism and violence is the only recourse by which the Pallys can make the world take notice them and recognise their right to have a country as well. Even if we accept the falacious nature of that argument, it is negated by the present day fact that the Palestinians have their own nation now, thus ending the need for the violence necessary in creating it. Moreover, as was pointedly mentioned many times in the movie, the Palestinians are/were housed in refugee camps, an unforgivable slight to their pride. What is ignored is the fact that is was fellow Arabs who put them there, not the Israelis, but somehow this egregious wrong is blamed on the Jews.

Lastly, it is the Jewish bombmaker who states towards the end of the movie that all this killing and retribution is the antithesis of being a Jew. While that may be true, I suspect that if the Arab world simply accepted a Jewish presence in the Middle East and played friendly for a change (like the Egyptians), they'd discover that the core nature of the Jewish people is rather pacifistic and unaggressive. This is a step the vast majority of the Muslim world is yet unwilling to make.

Totem

Schlinder's List had bewbies.

Actually, Munich had bewbies. Copious bewbies, as a matter of fact. Indeed, in order to slake your thirst for bewbies and violence, Spielberg had full frontal female nudity combined with a snuff shot. Does it get any better than that? Ok, so it didn't have a car chase scene, but it was shot in Holland, so bicycles were utilized instead.

Totem

You do know what antithesis means, right?

I agree about the Arab-Palestinian problem. Before the Jews were there, Palestinians were bitter toward the Lebanese, the Syrians and the Jordanians. That whole "Me and my brother against my cousin, but me, my brother and my cousin against the world" saying holds very true.

I really want to see this movie, and we have this brand new theater in town which doesn't have it. That really annoys me. I wonder if it is the subject matter, who knows.

Edit: Looking further, I am convinced that is it. The same company owns all of the theaters around here, and there is only one place that has the movie. There is a theater in Memphis in the artsy part of town that is really small and sells beer. They carry documentaries and that sort of thing. Out of a gazillion theaters in the area, that is the only place to see this film.



Edited, Mon Jan 16 14:34:12 2006 by Katarine

Totem said

I'm assuming from this incredibly crass statement that you havn't ever actually been to the so called palestinian state...?

If you think that what the 'pallys' have is a state then maybe a little more research into the 'state' that they find themselves in, would be useful before making such a statement

And blaming the arab world for their plight isn't too valid when you consider who it is who props up the majority of the arab world......

Nah it has to be Duel.

low budget classic almost on a par with Tremors, in fact if he had cast bacon in the lead role it would be No1.