Spielberg Out of the Spotlight: "Munich"

In the weeks leading up to the November 16 release of the much-hyped “Lincoln,” Sam Watermeier will look back at director Steven Spielberg’s less popular films, his work outside the spotlight.

Shaking slightly behind their pistols, the men ask, “Do you know why we’re here?” — a question aimed as much at themselves as their victims.

The men in this scene from Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” have reason to kill. But the film ultimately shows that “political murder, even when it’s justified, consumes the soul” (as Owen Gleiberman wrote in his review).

Like the great political thrillers of 1970s New Hollywood cinema, the film’s suspense is two-fold, lying within the execution of the characters’ schemes and the interference of moral questions.

Morally speaking, the mission in the film is initially crystal clear. A team of Mossad agents is assigned to execute the Palestinian terrorists responsible for killing 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. As the body count mounts, so do questions of justice. The assassins slowly come to the startling realization that they are not unlike their targets — and, in killing them, they are justifying the very sin that prompted their mission.

Their guilt is foreshadowed in the following dialogue:

You do any terrifying thing you're asked to do, but you have to do it running. You think you can outrun your fears, your doubts. The only thing that really scares you guys is stillness.

What’s most impressive about the film is the way Spielberg manages to craft suspenseful setpieces out of these quiet moments of reflection. Take, for instance, the scene in which the team leader, Avner (Eric Bana), waits to switch off a hotel room light fused to a detonator — an act whose simplicity underscores the fragility of life and the detachment necessary in taking it.

Another great scene of brutal intimacy is the one in which Avner tears up his apartment in the search for bugs — a noticeable nod to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 paranoid thriller “The Conversation.” Like Coppola and other great leaders of the New Hollywood movement, Spielberg defiantly focuses on what’s in between the explosions and gunfire.

In those moments of stillness, the film ultimately emerges as a reflection of the War in Iraq — another murky effort prompted out of what seemed to be reactionary revenge motives. This reflection cannot be denied, especially in the film’s closing shot of the World Trade Center — a haunting crystal ball image of history doomed to repeat itself.

The film leaves us with a cautionary notion for the future. As The Charlotte Observer's Lawrence Toppman posed in his review, "Would you feel anxiety or remorse if you pulled the trigger on Osama bin Laden, however satisfying or even necessary it might be? 'Munich' argues that finding him in our rifle sights would leave any of us a different person."

In an age in which our enemies seem nebulous and omnipresent, "Munich" provides the stark reminder that they have names, faces, and families — and are closer within reach than we like to imagine. These may not be earth-shattering revelations, but Spielberg powerfully drives them home.

This film may not carry the same weight or respect as "Schindler's List" or "Saving Private Ryan" — perhaps because it lacks their ultimately hopeful, cinematic luster — but "Munich" is easily Spielberg's most explicit political statement.

Some found the film repetitive and preachy, with Avner seeming like "an absurdly improbable expression of Spielbergian schmaltz." Perhaps the film's sentiments are a bit skin-deep and in-your-face, but I applaud Spielberg for not sacrificing any of his panache in presenting them. This is definitely a film with an ethical agenda, but it also thrills. So, once again, Spielberg enables viewers to have their popcorn and eat it, too.

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Stay tuned. Next week, I will discuss Spielberg's departure from the real world and venture into the realm of motion-capture animation with "The Adventures of Tintin."