No. 46: Munich
Israel’s existential plight
December 07, 2011
(Imdb.com)
2005, dir. Steven Spielberg. The finest of Spielberg’s “high-minded” “adult” movies follows a group of Mossad agents as they exact revenge for the PLO’s terrorist attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. It’s a great genre movie: a taut, blood-quickening thriller, with beautifully shot action sequences. It’s also a surprisingly ambivalent essay on Israel’s existential plight and the toll that violence exacts on nations and individuals.
Jody Rosen is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.
