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Vol. I
No. 9 How Little Difference 34 Years
Make Film in Focus
The event itself, when 11 Israeli athletes were kidnaped in the dead of night, held hostage for several weeks and eventually murdered by their captors on the tarmac of their attempted flight from justice, is replayed in ever more intense flashbacks in the mind of Avner. Played with remarkable fluidity by an Eric Bana (Troy, Hulk) who easily slips between the accents of an Englishman, a German and an Israeli as the situation calls for, Avner is driven half-mad by what he is compelled to do not only by a revenge-obsessed government in Jerusalem, but by a culture where you are told by family and friends to “not think about it” when following homicidal orders. Indeed the word “dialogue” only appears once in this film, as the targets responsible for the 1972 Olympic murders are picked off by the five-man semi-autonomous hit squad led by Avner, only to be replaced by more brutal successors who ramp up their own campaign of violence. The one real dialogue between the enemies, when a Palestinian team happens unwittingly upon a safe house used by Avner’s men who maintain their disguises, only reveals the depth of hatred and commitment is a shared fate for both sides. Spielburg humanizes Avner by developing his relationship with the pregnant wife he leaves behind, the one anchor of humanity he hangs on to as he is increasingly obsessed with his hunt. Moral qualms in this crew are disdained in a most chilling fashion by Steve, played with steely resolve by Daniel Craig (The Power of One, Laura Croft: Tomb Raider), when he says the only blood he cares about is Jewish blood, something the architects of the Nuremburg Laws of Nazi Germany would undoubtedly agree with. This is something the conscience or ‘worrier’ of the group, Carl (played by Ciarán Hinds of Rome, The Sum of All Fears) can’t quite stand, as terror unleashed against doubts and fears will inevitably catch up with you. Of course Carl also toasts “Mozoltov!” to the birth of Avner’s daughter and in the next breath does so again on delivering news of another Palestinian successfully assassinated. It is their very nature as a stateless people, something the Israelis ought to still have been familiar after a single generation of independence, that makes the Palestinians such a deserving target, according to the logic of Prime Minister Golda Meir, who seems to forget her country’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights just as much as her amoral adversaries, not to mention that the United Nations had intended to create two states within the then-British Mandate of Palestine all along. Although her government maintains through a brilliantly demanding Mossad agent played by Geoffrey Rush (Quills, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers) that Avner’s team is officially unofficial, the stacks of money surreptitiously provided them through a Swiss bank make such distinctions purely for the suckers who care about artifice. Thus an aura of duplicity, paranoia, ethical crisis and sudden death permeate this film – in other words, a frightening reminder of the post-9/11 worldview we live under today. The gripping action is complemented by crisp THX sound and cinematography which lets the action speak for itself. It’s a compliment to Spielberg’s maturity to push himself out of a sentimental nose-dive as he dissects a very sentimental character plunged into such a soul-grinding quest where women and children just as often find their way into the paths of killers on all sides. This film can leave you feeling cold, empty and very much alive as we face the dilemma of our own canlee-happy culture so ready to kill in the name of...whatever. Grade: A |
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Copyright © 2005-06, Humboldt Sentinel. All rights reserved. |
The
shedding of sentimentality and pure, stupid dualism for a rousing critique
of reciprocity marks a stunning departure for Stephen Spielberg as he
finally breaks through with a 21st Century marvel, Munich, a film which
shows us how little we have truly left the bloodiest days behind us. It
is based on the book Vengeance by George Jonas, the true story of
a Mossad counter-terrorist squad. 