Steven Spielberg’s Munich opens with television coverage of Black September’s kidnapping of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games. Based on the book Vengeance by George Jones, the film traces the reaction of the Israeli government to the Munich attack and asks difficult questions about the nature of terrorism that continue to resonate.
Avner (Eric Bana) leads a five-man team of ex-Mossad agents charged with tracking down and killing the 11 Palestinians responsible for planning and executing the Munich attack. Bana is excellent as Avner, a man who brings violence into his own home while attempting to protect his homeland. Although his wife is seven months pregnant, his patriotism outweighs all other concerns and he strongly believes that assassinating the Palestinians is morally justifiable.
From the outset the film is shrouded in claustrophobic tension as Avner’s team begin their mission with a bungled kill; later they become increasingly adept at tracking down and disposing of targets.
Munich’s most masterful scene sees a target’s daughter answer a phone rigged to a bomb. Spielberg employs Hitchcockian tricks to provide details the main characters miss, ensuring we worry whether danger can be averted.
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The Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) sends the group out with the warning: “Every civilisation finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values.” Was Israel compromising its values or aggressively defending itself?
As the killings mount up Avner begins to question Israel’s retaliation policy. His team soon discover that for every terrorist they kill, another takes his place. They can never fully celebrate a killing for fear of reprisals and the hunters soon realise that they are also the hunted.
Spielberg must be applauded for humanising both Muslim and Jew. He neither demonises the Palestinians nor canonises the Israelis. Instead, every death is mourned.
In one scene, the Israeli’s share a safe house with a Palestinian group. Avner talks to its leader, Ali, and discovers they share the same desires for home and family.
However, the film is based on a book “inspired” by true events, and lacks historical accuracy. Spielberg appears to be suggesting that the Munich attacks and Israeli response ignited the conflict in the Middle East when the Arab/Israeli conflict had in fact begun well before 1972. He also cannot have known of the episodes or dialogue of the Mossad response to the siege. Nevertheless, Munich is a brave portrayal of the cyclical nature of terrorism.
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Spielberg’s message is emphasised in the film’s closing scene when Avner meets his former recruiter in a peaceful New York park, with the Twin Towers in the background. “You killed them for Munich, for the future, for peace” he is told. Thirty years later, such words fall upon a knowing audience.