Munich
Steven Spielberg's Munich has me reconsidering: all that is art need not be beautiful. Last night I saw a drama that unveiled a chapter of the early conflict between Palestinian and Hebrew in all its darkness and complexity. The time is 1972-4. The Israelites had survived an all out Arab attack in 1967, after fighting the Arabs in 1949 to keep the land granted to them in 1948. Leaders were old enough to have survived the holocaust. Now their sons must fight to keep the nation from being annihilated. Strike back the terrorists. Strike hard.
It was good to see the struggle within the five characters assigned to exact vengeance for the Munich dead. Was is right to slay a gentle poet at point-blank range, and wrong to kill a harlot in the same way? But these were more than poet and harlot. Yet, how do we know? Doubts abound, and the toymaker yearns for righteousness, without which his soul cannot survive. The ferris wheel stops and he is gone.
A cheese is on the way to Abner, the Israeli leader, when the movie ends. It is a gift from the French informant, who says "Remember, I will never hurt you." But the toymaker foreshadowed what could be planted in such a gift. Even Abner will not escape. What worth is he to this Frenchman after the blood money stops?
The pattern of vengence will never end, Abner says to his superior. It is the bottom line of the movie, and then the credits roll under the New York skyline, complete with the newly constructed twin towers of the World Trade Center. We are taken, in an instant, from the days of fighting Black September to the days of fighting Al Quaeda.
Selah.
It was good to see the struggle within the five characters assigned to exact vengeance for the Munich dead. Was is right to slay a gentle poet at point-blank range, and wrong to kill a harlot in the same way? But these were more than poet and harlot. Yet, how do we know? Doubts abound, and the toymaker yearns for righteousness, without which his soul cannot survive. The ferris wheel stops and he is gone.
A cheese is on the way to Abner, the Israeli leader, when the movie ends. It is a gift from the French informant, who says "Remember, I will never hurt you." But the toymaker foreshadowed what could be planted in such a gift. Even Abner will not escape. What worth is he to this Frenchman after the blood money stops?
The pattern of vengence will never end, Abner says to his superior. It is the bottom line of the movie, and then the credits roll under the New York skyline, complete with the newly constructed twin towers of the World Trade Center. We are taken, in an instant, from the days of fighting Black September to the days of fighting Al Quaeda.
Selah.
posted by Lynda at 10:15 AM
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