Monday, February 20, 2006

munich - Speilburg's new movie


munich
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.
Steven Speilburg's new movie is Munich, at 164 minutes in length. Is it good? Some cool scenes of assassination I guess. Very long, too long. The last scene of the Olympic athletes being killed, in flashback, while Avner is in bed with his wife is stupid - I guess it was some kind of catharsis for Avner, but really dumb. The assassination scene with the woman was sexist and disgusting. The main theme is the moral relatavism of terrorism and counter terrorism: who are the real terrorist? When everyone is wrong, who is right? What was accomplished with Avner's assassinations? The theater was crowded, I saw it in a predominantly jewish area of pittsburgh and I understand Speilburg's purpose: let's start discussing Israel's tactics dealing with Hamas, with the Palestinian question, lets have dialogue about how to restore humanity, morality and peace in the middle east. But I think he could have done that with a shorter film, without the "kill the whore" assassination scene. How were women portrayed in the film? As a whorish assassin, a traditional wife/mother/stay at-home-keep-home woman, as Golda Meir the ruthless woman leader....this makes me think about how Speilburg protrays women in his other films....I will have to think about that.....Supposedly (I dont know this for sure) Natalie Portman thinks this movie sucks, she is offended by how israeli agents are portrayed, and she thinks Speilburg's message of moral reletavism in fighting terrorism is bullshit (she was born in Israeli). Hey, but she has made some controversial Israeli films (French director) and she has been criticized for being one of those "peacenik" American-jews-who-dont-understand-Israeli politics. I guess if this film gets people talking and thinking that it is good - but I dont want to see this film a second time. (there were great french cars in the movie - full of c ool looking Citroens!)

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