Munich

Posted on December 9, 2005 at 3:21 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong graphic violence, some sexual content, nudity and language.
Profanity:	Mild language for an R-rated film
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extremely intense and graphic peril and violence, many characters killed, child in peril
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2005
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000F1IQN2

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meier said, “I can forgive them for killing my children. I cannot forgive them for forcing my children to kill theirs.”

At the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, there was very little security because the Germans were hoping to counter memories of the Nazi-run 1936 Olympics in Berlin. In what later became known as the Black September attack, terrorists broke into the athletes’ living quarters and took members of the Israeli team hostage. They killed two of the team members and released a list of demands. They wanted the release of 234 Arab and German prisoners held in Israel and West Germany. And they demanded that three planes be fueled and made ready for takeoff. At the airport, a failed effort to rescue the hostages led to disaster. All of the hostages and five of the eight terrorists were dead. The three terrorists who were captured were released a few months later in an airplane hijacking that was later acknowledged to be engineered by the German authorities.

This movie is the story of what happened next.

And it is the story of what we face today. Thousands of years of history have given us no roadmap for responding to terrorism. All of the options are unthinkable.

Meier (Lynn Cohen), criticized for refusing to negotiate with the terrorists, authorizes an attack by air on guerrilla targets in Lebanon and Syria. And she directs that the organizers and perpetrators of the Black Sunday attack be hunted down and killed. Not captured, not tried in court. Killed.

The leader of this off-the-books venture is Avner Kauffman (Eric Bana), an officer in Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) with a wife who is seven months pregnant. Israel will have no official knowledge of their activities, but will support them with cash and resources.

Like a real-life Mission Impossible, Avner has a team of experts. One knows bombs. One knows how to forge documents. One “worries” — he’s the guy who makes sure they don’t leave any clues behind.

They have thousands of American dollars to give to those who can help them find their targets. And very quickly, they find their first target. He is not in hiding. In fact, he is due to appear at a promotional event for his new book, a translation of the Arabian Nights into Italian.

They follow him as he stops to pick up groceries and has a pleasant exchange with the shopkeeper. They confront him in the stairwell of his apartment building. They shoot him, and his blood mingles with the spilled milk from the shattered bottle.

Avner makes contact with Louis (Mathieu Amalric) a man who explains that he is “ideologically promiscuous” and will do anything except do business with any government. Avner assures him he is working for “rich Americans” and Louis begins to give him names and provide support for the operation. But how do you trust someone who is (apparently) honest about his untrustworthiness, especially when you’re lying to him? Louis (possibly a reference to the initially amoral Louis in Casablanca) makes no promises that he will protect Avner if another client is looking for him. But Louis has what Avner will not find from an upstanding citizen — the names and locations of the people Avner is looking for and the means to help Avner and his team kill them.

It would have been natural, even easy, for the Steven Spielberg of 20 years ago to make this into a sort of “Indiana Jones and the Terrorist Assassins” story, with Avner as something between a cowboy and a comic book hero specializing in do-it-yourself justice. Revenge is a narrative propulsion engine that always works well in movies and Spielberg is a master of pacing and storytelling. All of that is brilliantly applied here. But he does not let us get caught up in the good guys vs. the bad guys shoot-em-up. The first hit is not just excruciatingly tense; it is excruciatingly difficult. We want them to shoot, but we also don’t want them to.

Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner (Angels in America) do not just show us all sides; they show Avner and his team all sides, and let the characters and the audience agonize over what they and we have become. In one scene, Louis has unintentionally (or intentionally) double-booked two teams of assassins into a room in an ironically-termed “safe house.” After an all-guns-drawn stand-off, Avner persuades the other group they are not there to hurt them, and everyone lies down to try to get some sleep. There’s a bit of a struggle over the radio until they find a station everyone can agree on — American R&B. Meanwhile, Avner and the leader of the other group talk about the future of Israel and Palestine. The next time they meet, talking is not on the agenda.

Spielberg is a master of point of view, making us care about and root for the movie’s “hero.” We happily root for the good guys when it’s three guys against a shark or some scientists and kids against the dinosaurs or Indiana Jones (or Schindler or the soldiers looking for Private Ryan) against the Nazis. Here, he uses that skill to tell Avner’s story, making it clear that he is the hero, and yet keep us off-balance as he and Kushner add layers of heart-wrenching detail and complexity.

Like most Spielberg movies, the theme of this story is home, and what makes it heartbreaking is the way each of the characters is just trying to do the best he can to protect his home and his family. What makes it even more heartbreaking is the way that all of them, in their own way, end up as exiles. Avner can no longer live in the land for which he sacrificed so much, including his time with his family and his peace of mind. Others lose the home they thought they had as a part of a culture committed to righteousness, not revenge.

Like Avner, we get numb to the killing. The first one is heart-breaking; after the fourth (or is it the fifth?), you’re just thinking about the logistics.

How do you kill a monster without becoming one yourself? How do you look in the eyes of a monster without seeing his humanity? The first of Avner’s targets explains that the Arabian Nights stories are enduring because of the power of narrative. Each of the characters in the story (as well as Spielberg, Kushner, and the real-life Avner who cooperated with a book about what happened) have a story to tell. The movie ends, but the story goes on.

Parents should know that this is an extremely violent movie with constant peril and many injuries and deaths and a child in peril. This is not a mindless Hollywood shoot-em-up; it is a real-life story and Spielberg and Kushner make you feel how agonizing each encounter really is. There are also explicit sexual situations (some nudity). The language is less strong than in most R-rated films; someone gives the finger.

Families who see this movie should talk about what the options are for preventing and responding to terrorist attacks. How does each of the people in this movie define the “home” he or she is protecting? How do each of them decide what the limits are — what they will and will not do? How do you decide what your own defition of home and limits are? Black September and the Israeli response (which they called “Wrath of God”) were both in large part intended to affect the public perception of the righteousness of the causes of their organizers. How effective were they? How do you decide who is in your “us” and who is in your “them?” What does Meier’s quotation mean?

Families who appreciate this movie should see the Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September about the capture and killing of the Israeli Olympic athletes, which makes clear the devastation of the loss of the Israeli team members and explores the ineptitude of the German officals and the callousness of the Olympic community. More information about the Black September attack and its aftermath can be found here, here, and here. A Woman Called Golda has Ingrid Bergman as Golda Meier, the Milwaukee schoolteacher who became the second Prime Minister of Israel.

A Man for All Seasons

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: The Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) is a man of great principle and a devout Catholic in the time of King Henry VIII. The King wants to dissolve his marriage to the queen (a Spanish princess and the widow of his late brother) so that he can marry Anne Boleyn. All around him, courtiers and politicians plot to use this development to their advantage, or at least to hold on to their positions, given the conflict between the Church’s position that marriage is indissoluble and the King’s that it must be dissolved. For More, the choice is clear, and God comes before the King. But because of More’s incorruptible reputation, his support is crucial. Every possible form of persuasion and coercion is attempted, but More will not make any affirmative statement on behalf of the divorce (though he refrains from opposing it explicitly). And More will not lend his allegiance to the new church headed by the King.

Finally, having lost his position, his fortune, his reputation (on false charges) and his liberty, More is sentenced to death. He accepts it with grace and faith, forgiving the executioner.

Discussion: This is an outstanding (and brilliantly filmed) study of a man who is faced with a harrowingly difficult moral choice. The choice remains clear to him, even at great cost not just to himself but to his family. Yet within his clear moral imperative, he does calibrate. His conscience does not require him to work against or even speak out against the divorce; he need only keep silent.

Questions for Kids:

· What does the title mean?

· The same director made “High Noon” — do you see any similarities?

· What would you consider in deciding what to do, if you were More?

· What other characters in history can you think of who sustained such a commitment to a moral principle?

Connections: Kids and teens should read some of the books about this period, and see if they can find reproductions of the paintings by Hans Holbein of the real-life characters. They may want to watch some of the many movies about it as well. As history shows, the marriage that led to the establishment of the Church of England did not last. “Anne of the Thousand Days” tells the story of the relationship of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, including, from a different perspective, some of the events of “A Man for All Seasons.” A British mini-series, “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” devotes one episode to each wife, and is more historically accurate and very well done. Henry VIII is such a colorful figure that he appeared in several movies, including the classic “Private Life of Henry VIII” with Charles Laughton. His death appears in the (completely fictional) “Prince and the Pauper,” and his daughter with Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth I, is featured in several movies, including “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn) and “Mary, Queen of Scots” (with Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth) and “Mary of Scotland” (with Katharine Hepburn as Mary and Florence Eldridge as Elizabeth).

This movie won six Oscars , including Best Picture, Director, and Actor.

A Room With a View

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) arrives in Italy with her strait-laced aunt Charlotte (Maggie Smith). Disappointed at not getting the room with a view they had been promised when making their reservations at the inn, they are not sure whether it is proper to accept the offer of Mr. Emerson (Denholm Elliot) and his son George (Julian Sands), staying at the same inn, to switch rooms so they may have a view after all. Reassured by the clergyman, Mr. Beebe (Simon Callow), they agree.

Later, out in the countryside, George impetuously kisses Lucy, and her aunt, horrified, whisks her back to England. There, Lucy is engaged to Cecil, a prissy man, who likes Lucy’s “freshness” and “subtlety,” and kisses her lightly, only after asking her permission. Mr. Beebe says that “If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays (the piano), it will be very exciting–both for us and for her.” He clearly does not think the engagement to Cecil is evidence that she has.

The Emersons move into a cottage near the Honeychurch family, invited by Cecil, who does not realize that Lucy knows them. Lucy is distressed, partly because she wanted two elderly ladies she met in Italy to live there, and partly because having George so near is disturbing to her. She does her best to resist her attraction to him and to the passionate reality that he offers, but ultimately breaks the engagement to Cecil, marries George, and returns with him to the room with a view.

Discussion: Lush natural settings have a powerful affect on fictional characters, especially those in love, or wanting to fall in love. In Shakespeare, lovers go to the woods to straighten things out. In the British literature of the 19th and early 20th century, they often go to Italy, which represents freedom from repression, with “Enchanted April” and this film as prime examples. The wheat field where George kisses Lucy is in sharp contrast to the manicured lawns of the Honeychurch home, as the precise and cerebral Cecil is in contrast to the passionate George.

This is a movie about having the courage to face one’s feelings, and to risk intimacy, fully knowing and being known by another person. George never hesitates to take that risk. Cecil, sensitively played by Daniel Day-Lewis as a full character and not a caricature of a fop, has feelings but will never be able to “take to live as (he) plays.” Clearly, he does care deeply for Lucy, but he does not have the passionate nature to respond to hers fully, as George does. As George says, Cecil “is the sort who can’t know anyone intimately, least of all a woman,” someone who wants Lucy as an ornament, perhaps to enjoy her passionate nature by proxy, not realizing that his own proximity is likely to stifle it. George wants Lucy “to have ideas and thoughts and feelings, even when I hold you in my arms.”

Questions for Kids:

· Mr. Emerson refers to a “Yes! And a Yes! And a Yes” at the “side of the Everlasting Why.” What does this mean?

· What leads Lucy to break her engagement to Cecil? What leads her to accept her feelings for George?

· What is the meaning of the title?

Connections: Some of the themes of this movie are reminiscent of movies like “I Know Where I’m Going,” “Born Yesterday,” “Sabrina,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “It Happened One Night,” and others in which the leading lady ends up marrying someone other than the man she planned to marry, choosing true love and intimacy over comfort and a relationship that seemed safer.

Activities: Teenagers might enjoy the book by E.M. Forster, and some of his other books, including Howard’s End.

Related Tags:

Based on a book Epic/Historical Romance

Enigma

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

One of the most important contributions to the Allied victory in World War II was a code-breaking operation that was so secret it was not revealed until 30 years later. Their deciphering of the Enigma code developed by the Germans shortened the war by as much as a year.

This is the story of the people who worked at a huge and historic estate called Bletchley to unlock the unlockable. They had to solve a puzzle considered impenetrable because it was so complex that it could never have been decoded by the human brain. What the Germans never anticipated was that the British would think up the beginnings of the modern day computer and develop a “thinking machine” to sort through billions of complex computations and find the equivalent of a needle buried in one of millions of haystacks.

The essentials of the story are true, but the characters in the movie are fictional. As he did with “Shakespeare in Love,” screenwriter/playwright Tom Stoppard brilliantly interweaves the real and the imaginary to illuminate not only his characters’ era but our own.

The central figure in this story is Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott), a brilliant mathematician with a stunning grasp of numerical relationships. His grasp of human relationships is a little shaky, however. When we first meet him, he is returning to Bletchley after a breakdown. He was shattered by a brief, overwhelming affair with Claire (Saffron Burrows), a co-worker who seduced and then abandoned him. His superiors do not want him back, but he may be their best hope for breaking the German’s new code, the Shark, before a group of U-boats meet up with American convoys carrying desperately needed supplies.

The reason the Germans are using a new code is that they found out that the British had broken the Enigma. Meanwhile, Claire has disappeared. Figuring out where she is and whether there is a connection between her disappearance and the leak to the Germans is a puzzle that is as important to Tom as decoding the Shark.

He teams up with Claire’s roommate Hester (Kate Winslet) to find out what happened to Claire. As they search for clues, they are watched by Wigram (Jeremy Northern), a sleek secret agent investigating Tom and his team to see if one of them is a traitor.

Stoppard is fascinated with puzzles, wordplay, secrets, and stories within stories, all of which lend themselves very well to the Bletchley code-breakers. The movie brilliantly depicts the desperate atmosphere and heart-breaking dedication of the people who knew that their success – or failure – could do more to determine the outcome of the war than a thousand soldiers with guns.

The performances are excellent, particularly Northern, whose single syllable on entering Tom’s room, “Bliss!” gives us his character’s history from tony prep school through too many compromises. He is a man who has had to sacrifice what he once thought of as honor to serve a greater cause, has had to betray in order to be loyal, and has had to keep too many secrets. Winslet’s only failing is her entirely unsuccessful effort to look dowdy. But she and Scott are marvelous at showing us something we seldom see in movies, really smart people using their intelligence.

Parents should know that the movie has some sexual references and situations (brief nudity). Claire seduces just about every man she meets. There are some very tense scenes, including graphic images of slaughtered bodies in a mass grave.

The movie raises a number of moral dilemmas that are well worth discussion. When it becomes clear that there is no way to save the American supply ships in time, the code-breakers debate whether it is right to use what they know about the ships’ positions to help them calculate the keys to break the code. What are the best arguments for each side? Who was right? The characters lie and there are a number of betrayals in the movie – more than some members of the audience may be able to sort through on the first viewing – and it is worth talking about how people decide whom to trust and how much evidence they need before they change their minds.

Families who enjoy this movie should read about the real key figure at Bletchley, the truly enigmatic Alan Turing. His artificial intelligence test is still the standard used today.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy reading Between Silk and Cyanide, a wonderfully entertaining memoir by Leo Marks, who worked on creating codes during this era. (Fans of 84 Charing Cross Road will enjoy the fact that Leo Marks is the son of man who owned the bookstore at that address.) The complicated issues of uneasy alliances and tragic choices are explored in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel, Mother Night. You can also see an exciting but highly fictionalized version of the capture of the Enigma machine (in real life, it was the Brits, not the Americans) in U-571.

Friendly Persuasion

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: This is the story of the Birdwells, a loving Quaker family in the midst of the Civil War. Eliza (Dorothy McGuire), a devout woman, is the moral center of the family. Jess (Gary Cooper) is a thoughtful man, not as strict as Eliza on prohibitions like music and racing his horse, but with a strong commitment to his principles. Their children are Joshua (Anthony Perkins), a sensitive young man who opposes violence but feels that he must join the soldiers; Mattie (Phyllis Love), who falls in love with Gord, a neighbor who is a Union soldier; and Young Jess, a boy who is fascinated with the talk of war and battles.

A Union soldier comes to the Quaker prayer meeting to ask the men to join the army. They tell him that they cannot engage in violence under any circumstances. “We are opposed to slavery, but do not think it right to kill one man to free another.” Even when the soldier points out that this means others will be dying to protect their lives and property, no one will support him.

The Confederate army approaches, and Joshua and Enoch, a freed slave who works on the Birdwell’s farm, decide to join the Union. Eliza does everything she can to keep Joshua from going, even telling him that in doing so he will not only reject what he has learned in church but he will reject her, too. Jess says that Joshua has to make up his own mind. “I’m just his father, Eliza. I’m not his conscience. A man’s life ain’t worth a hill of beans unless he lives up to his own conscience. I’ve got to give Josh that chance.” Joshua prays for guidance, and leaves to join the army the next morning. At first Eliza won’t respond, but then she runs after him to wish him well.

As the war gets closer, Jess and Eliza refuse to run away from their farm as others are doing. When Josh’s horse comes back without him, Jess goes looking for him. He finds his good friend Sam mortally wounded by a sniper. When the sniper shoots at Jess, too, Jess takes his gun away, but will not harm him; he tells the sniper, “Go on, get! I’ll not harm thee.” Josh is wounded, and deeply upset because he killed a Confederate soldier. Jess brings him home.

In the meantime, the Confederates ride into the farm, and in keeping with her faith, Eliza welcomes them and gives them all her food. But when one of the soldiers goes after her beloved pet goose, she whacks him with the broom, amusing her children and leaving herself disconcerted and embarassed. Jess and Josh return, and the family goes off to church together, to continue to do their best to match their faith to their times.

Discussion: This is an exceptional depiction of a loving family, particularly for the way that Jess and Eliza work together on resolving their conflicts. They listen to each other with enormous respect and deep affection. Jess does his best to go along with Eliza’s stricter views on observance, because in his heart he believes she is right. Nevertheless, he cannot keep himself from trying to have his horse beat Sam’s as they go to church on Sunday, and he decides to buy an organ knowing that she will object. In fact, he doesn’t even tell her about it. She is shocked when it arrives and says that she forbids it, to which he replies mildly, “When thee asks or suggests, I am like putty in thy hands, but when thee forbids, thee is barking up the wrong tree.” Having said that if the organ goes into the house, she will not stay there, she goes off to sleep in the barn. He does not object — but he goes out there to spend the night with her, and they reconcile and find a way to compromise.

All of this provides a counterpoint to more serious questions of faith and conscience. In the beginning, when the Union soldier asks the Quakers if any of them will join him, one man stands up to say that nothing could ever make him fight. Later, when his barn is burned, he is the first to take up a gun. Even Eliza, able to offer hospitality to the same men who may have just been shooting at her son, finds herself overcome when one of them captures her beloved pet goose.

Jess is willing to admit that the answer is not so simple. All he asks is that “the will of God be revealed to us and we be given the strength to follow his will.” He understands the difficulty of finding the right answer for himself and for Joshua. He resolves it for himself in his treatment of the sniper, and he respects Joshua and the issues involved enough to let Joshua make his own choice.

The movie is a rare one in which someone makes a moral choice through prayer, which many families will find worth emphasizing. Josh, who was able to respond without violence to the thugs at the fair, decides that he cannot benefit from risks taken by others unless he is willing to take them, too. He cries in battle, but he shoots.

The issue of how someone committed to non-violence responds to a violent world is thoughtfully raised by this movie.

Questions for Kids:

· How is the religious service in the movie similar or different from what you have experienced?

· How was the faith of the characters tested in this movie? What did they learn from the test?

· How should people who are opposed to violence respond to violence when it is directed against them? When it is directed against others?

Connections: The screenplay was written by Michael Wilson, who received no screen credit because he was blacklisted during the Red Scare. His involvement makes the issues of conscience raised in the book even more poignant. The book on which the movie is based, by Jessamyn West (a Quaker, and a cousin of Richard Nixon) is well worth reading. Cooper faces some of the same issues (and has a Society of Friends bride) in “High Noon.” “Shenandoah,” with Jimmy Stewart as the father of a large family who tries to keep his sons out of the Civil War, raises some of the same themes without the religious context. It later became a successful Broadway musical.