Munich

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Geoffrey Rush

As the film begins, dozens of names of cities that have held the Olympics Games flash by, and then settle on the eponymous Munich. However, the film doesn’t really deal with the kidnapping and murders of the Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics. That story is just a catalyst to the events in this film and the journey of the protagonist, who may or may not be a hero. The film is about, to paraphrase the words of Prime Minister Golda Meir in the film, the compromises a civilisation has to negotiate with its own values.

Eric Bana plays Avner, who is sent to Europe as leader of a team aiming to track down and kill every single Palestinian involved in the incident. As the mission goes on he and his men begin to (silently) question their morals - is this right? That story is simple enough. It’s the details which Spielberg and his cast and crew infuse into the film that make this a Best Picture contender.

That the film was made in six months (directly after Spielberg finished promoting War of the Worlds) is in itself remarkable. It is a solid film, on the one hand an adventure story, on the other a depressing and uneasy look at the choices and emotions an assassin experiences. Even though the events depicted in the film are not entirely accurate to reality, Spielberg made sure the film feels realistic. No horror film technique is used; and you will not find the hero and the villain in the same place coincidentally (in the first place, there are no villains). That sense of realism makes the prospect of these characters killing people and the possibility any one of them might be assassinated themselves chilling. The film also makes a point to be unbiased - so unbiased that Spielberg was criticised by both Israelis and Palestinians.

Watch Munich, and you may learn to no longer make simplistic judgments about how any side is right or wrong.

Sebastian Ng