Munich on Trial

I’ve been dreading discussing Munich for years. Unlike Inglourious Basterds, which I’m also mixed on, it’s based on real events. 11 Israeli athletes being murdered by Palestinian terror group Black September actually happened, and it’s reprehensible that it took 50 years for The IOC to acknowledge it. However, while Steven Spielberg might’ve been the right director for this subject matter, as even his turds are interesting, the way he tackled it bothers me. Especially since it’s being reevaluated with October 7th and the Gaza incursion. However, since Patrick H Willems discussed it in his most-recent video, I guess I’m biting the bullet.

Full-disclosure: I didn’t rewatch Munich for this. A part of me wanted to, but I was genuinely scared. I don’t remember my experience, particularly the bizarre sex scene, to be pleasant. It was long, frustrating and occasionally boring. And its attempt at being even-handed felt preachy, such that I lost interest and ended up confused. Essentially, everything I’m about to mention is based on memory and cultural osmosis. Understood?

Also, this is too competently acted and directed to be “bad”. Spielberg doesn’t cop out on basic visual storytelling, even when he misfires, and this is no exception. I especially appreciate how every actor fully-commits, even if not all of them are appropriately cast. (What’s Daniel Craig doing in here?) Considering how a truly bad movie wouldn’t be like this, I think perspective is in order.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: the movie’s seen a resurgence in popularity. Right around the time Israel went to clear out Hamas operatives in 2023, people on Twitter and Facebook were talking about how the movie’s biggest lesson was how Palestinians are human beings, and that Israelis and Jews don’t view them as such. This is false. I can’t speak for all Jews, since we’re notorious for not seeing eye-to-eye, but the notion that no one cares about Palestinians isn’t true. Ignoring activists and extremist groups (I’m talking about The Neturei Karta), Jews, Israelis in particular, have been advocating for Palestinians for decades. They were advocating long before it was mainstream, hence the tragedy of October 7th. (Those individuals who were murdered were peace activists.)

It’s important to remind my readers of that because that’s frequently lost in the conversation. Sometimes, as with The Nova Exhibit, it’s deliberately ignored by those who refuse to acknowledge the humanity of Israelis. But it’s true. Individuals like Tiferet Lapidot, or Vivian Silver, had done more to foster peace with humanitarian work than most keyboard warriors. And they were still murdered anyway, because life’s cruel. Saying that Jews and Israelis don’t care about Palestinians is a lie.

Even removing that from the equation, Munich ham-fistedly reminds the audience of that through its diatribes about “The Cycle of Violence”. This theory states that violence is a game of cause-and-effect, with the perpetrators experiencing retaliation from those they attack frequently. The only way to end this cycle is to break it and acknowledge the humanity of the victims. It sounds good in theory, but humans aren’t automatons. Unlike robots, we have agency in our behaviour. Trauma might also explain violence, but it doesn’t excuse it.

This movie missed the memo. Munich was written by Tony Kushner, who’d previously penned Schindler’s List and would later pen Lincoln. One of its co-writers was the writer of Forrest Gump and Ali, Eric Roth, and save Dune he’s yet to write a movie I’ve enjoyed consistently. I’d expect a ham-fisted, preachy endeavour from Roth, but I’m embarrassed that Kushner fell guilty of that too. And yet, because movies are collaborative, I’m not sure who’s really to blame.

Assuming Kushner takes most of the credit, then I’m incredibly disappointed in him. I know his personal politics around Israel are complicated, something he’s confided in interviews. I also know he likes inserting his politics in his scripts, as evidenced by the out-of-place insinuation in Schindler’s List that Israel only exists because of The Holocaust. Yet while that was annoying, it was cancelled out by the remainder of the film being excellent. Here, however, his politics are everywhere, feeling tactless and preachy even if unintended.

This is most-apparent in the movie’s final conversation, where the protagonist, Avner, has a conversation with his superior while The Twin Towers are in the background. Nothing’s said of this in-film, yet the implication is that the action of The Mossad are partly to blame for the destruction of these towers in 2001. There’s room to discuss the dangers of American Interventionalist behaviour, and how that’s destroyed many countries, but drawing a parallel between Israel and 9/11 is, truthfully, insulting. It’s especially insulting to the memories of the dead, and it implicates Israelis in something they had no part in. Like the “dancing Israelis” claim, I’m annoyed.

Yet little details like this are peppered throughout, some more obvious than others. Yes, the members of Black Saturday were human beings. Yes, many of them had families. No, I don’t approve of the extreme measures The Mossad went to. But understanding isn’t empathizing. Black Sunday might be human beings, but they’re still terrorists. No one was going “well, actually” over Adolf Eichmann, even though he’s the only person Israel’s used the death penalty on, so why Black September? Why do they get away with “well, actually” because they’re Palestinian? Did the Israeli athletes they murdered get that same treatment?

If it feels like I’m over-projecting, it’s because the movie invites it. Like with Inglourious Basterds, it robs the Jewish characters of sympathy in order to show “what happened” to their perpetrators. Except this was real, not some alternate reality that rewrites The Holocaust into a revisionist tale. It also leaves me feeling icky about what happened to terrorists, something that doesn’t sit well. That’s a failure of storytelling.

Movies, contrary to what some claim, frequently parallel real life. And when Jews are being shamelessly torn down to build up Palestinians, which is insulting to both groups, for a Hollywood thriller to dabble in “those poor terrorists” because they’re from a country that currently has the world’s pity is self-righteous and doesn’t do anyone favours. It doesn’t do the dead Israelis justice, it doesn’t help the Palestinian civilians at the hands of their leaders, and it for sure doesn’t set the record straight on 9/11. If anything, this is an insulting movie!

I’d be less-annoyed if Antisemitism weren’t at an all-time high because of Gaza, but it is. It’s showing its face in how people are reacting to Robert Kraft’s mishandling of Macklemore. Or in how people are reacting to Mark Ruffalo’s feud with The Ellisons. Or in how people blamed the Ceuta situation on Israel. Or in the nonsensical petition to have Marwan Barghouti, a man with 5 life sentences, released from prison because he’s “The Palestinian Nelson Mandela”. God, I’m tired…

Between this and the rise in Antisemitic attacks, such that Jews around the world are scared, it’s no wonder I have a personal vendetta against Munich. I get wanting to portray the characters with nuance, such that you question the motives of the protagonists, but this was the wrong way to do it. If Spielberg and company were intent on a movie like this, they’d have best picked a different story. If they so desperately wished to cover what happened in Munich, which sucked, then they shouldn’t have had their cake and eaten it too. Basically, they needed to get out of their own way.

I’ll end this with something I recently read. Not too long ago, The Fuck Parade, an organization dedicated to punk rock, was asked to release a statement about Gaza. They did, and it was a rebuke of statements that ignored the victims of The Nova Festival, all of whom simply wanted to dance. While that might seem harsh, I applaud this organization for respecting Israelis as people. Because no civilians, even those from a country people deem the villain, deserved what happened. If acknowledging Israeli pain offends people, so be it!