Cinerant

The Gray Zone

Sometimes, Steven Spielberg can get everything technically right and still come up with a big dud (Minority Report, The War of the Worlds).  Critics and audiences still fall all over him—well, because he is Steven Spielberg—but discerning moviegoers realize his mo-jo is only so-so.  

Othertimes, he gets it so right that it’s easy to sit by and say, “That’s why he’s STEVEN SPIELBERG!”  When he is on his game, there are few directors who bring to the table the extraordinary talents he brings.  Yet, those talents, are very recognizable.  They are the things that make a Spielberg film, a Spielberg film—the absent father, the sentimental ending, the hero rescue, etc.  

This makes Munich fascinating because it’s the best non-Spielberg film, Spielberg’s ever made.  (And that’s meant to be a compliment of the highest order.)

Originally entitled, Vengeance, the film is about the Israeli response to the hijacking of the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972.  Eric Bana plays Avner, a former bodyguard for Prime Minster Golda Meir.  Meir and other Israeli leaders unofficially request him to assassinate the individuals who were responsible for the attacks.  Avner accepts and heads up an elite team of individuals who are driven by desire to protect Israel and seek retribution for the lives destroyed.  

While Munich does play like a conventional political thriller, the script, by Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and Academy Award winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), is at its strongest when it begins examining the toll vengeance takes upon Avner and his fellow assassins.  As the crew gets further and further into their mission, it begins to take tolls on each of them, but in different ways.  One becomes harder, one becomes more convicted, one becomes scared for his life, and another becomes conflicted.  Kushner and Roth do a wonderful job of showing how the psychological impact of an act can play out in full details.  

Performances are stellar across the board, from Lynn Cohen’s brief, but memorable turn as Meir, to Michael Lonsdale’s quiet performance as a man with more information than he’s willing to give.  Future Bond Daniel Craig does a nice job, though for those looking to learn more about him before his huge leading debut next year should check out Layer Cake.  Still, the success of this film lies in the hands of its lead.  Everything rests on Avner—and Bana is more than up to the challenge.  Delivering his best performance to date, he quietly allows the audience into Avner’s fears and trepidations, so by the end as his paranoia and conflict become overwhelming, we feel right along with it.  It’s a masterwork of subtlety.  

Still, the film is Spielberg’s.  He avoids all sentimentality, which makes this film work.  He refuses to take sides, noting the reasons for the assassinations, yet recognizing the effects.  Instead of trying to make a treatise on the subject, he instead wants to ask questions—and provides no answers.  This is why many pundits have problems with the film.  They’re nervous about the fact that the Jewish White Knight of Schindler’s List is questioning another great atrocity.  However, it’s the acknowledgment of gray that makes this film so revolutionary for the director, in addition to making it worth seeing for the audience.  

posted by cinegod @ 8:14 PM