I finally finished my last touches on "Munich" late last night. By far one of my most compelling assignments. I was repeatedly virtually sucked into the movie and had a hard time pausing to do the required work.
In my eyes Spielberg did an amazing job of portraying the dynamics of violence and retaliation beyond the sheer black and white concept of right or wrong. As the story unfolds, the viewer feels almost torn between the sides, the lines seem to blur and the question of justice cannot be answered in simple terms anymore.
Whether an action is justified or not will always depend on the viewer’s perspective; everyone always justifies their doing, whether someone else will see the just cause as well, is of course debateable.
Another interesting detail, we find in the progressing changes of the human mind, or in this case the protagonists of the movie. Transgressing stages from fear and respect before human lives, beyond ethnicity and political denomination, to automated actions, deprived of humanity for the sheer purpose of meeting an unquestioned objective.
However, in the course of the events our heros experience a gradual transformation, beginning to realize the endless circle they are suddenly trapped in, turning from the hunters into targets themselves.
An interesting quote at the end of the movie mirrors the change within our main protagonist. He questions the accomplishments of the mission, pointing out that each man that they had killed had been replaced by worse. He now sees that there is no end to this and his victory comes with a bitter aftertaste.
Bloodshed and killing can hardly ever be seen objectively from one angle only, there will always be someone on each side strongly believing in their subjectively valid arguments. Who is to decide which ones merit more justification? The director’s empathic attempt of transporting this message across through emotions and skilled cinematography becomes even more impressive to me when one considers his own, personal ethnic and historic background.
Nameless violence that we follow day in day out on the news is given here a human face. In subtle scenes, such as the little Palestinian girl playing the piano and smiling innocently at her father’s future assasin, or Avner’s, the main protagonist’s little baby girl uttering her first words into his ear over the phone. The little girl, his flesh and blood, that he has not held anymore since the day she was born. The dichotomy of giving and taking life.
Few movies venture to take a deeper look beyond the obvious, beyond right or wrong, just or unjust, and simply portray the human being in categories instead of as a whole, with his downfalls, weaknesses, sensitivity, compassion, but also his capacity to hurt, or even take lives…but this one certainly does.
