Munich

Munich- the movie was painfully, excruciatingly, tortuously slow. No second thoughts about that. But Munich was not about the movie, for at the end of the three hours, it was Munich- the message that lingered, a message that is so chillingly, scaringly, hopelessly true. Retribution, Revenge, Vengence- words that have meaning for individuals, words that blur into insignificance for people, masses, mobs, states and nations. Problems between nations, between masses will never be solved between a few individuals. The irony is, individual interactions are the only way that an attempt at solutions, however futile, can be made, and that is why they are the only routes being taken.

Munich is not just about Israel and Palestine, or about Jews and Muslims. It assumes a global perspective, a more universal meaning when you realise you can replace the two warring groups with any other two-India and Pakistan, Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Hindus and Muslims and the movie continues to hold the same relevance, convey the same impact. Problems between you and me are solved when one of us has a change of mind, or one of us is able to see things the way the other sees them. But when you have the issues between people en masse, how do they get resolved. How do you change the mind of a nation? How can you hope to wipe out animosity and hatred, that is ingrained in people from the age they are impressionable, until it becomes so deep rooted that it becomes second nature to them. Even an attempt to do that is bound to be fruitless, and it is that futility, that hopelessness is the message that Munich delivers so beautifully.

Oh yeah. I almost forgot....the movie. Well when the intention is so evidently not so much to entertain, as it is to educate or better put, enlighten, one cannot complain about the snail's pace. Eric Bana is good and the French informants are subtly impressive. There are brilliant moments, dialogues that are so richly multilayered that they echo off different meanings in your head- like for instance when the PLO Ali tells Avner " Do you know what it is to be without a home" or when Louis tells him looking at the kitchen plan through the shop window " It will be expensive, but that is how homes are". There are also disapointments, for in a movie that is so slow, the transformation of Avner is so rushed, the reasons why he begins to see the purposelessness of the killings instead of being implied, end up being unsaid.

So is Munich all about negativity? Does it just say that there are problems, that can never be solved and leave it that? I think not, and I, being the dreamer I am, choose to interpret my favorite part of the movie otherwise. Towards the end, as a hauntingly high pitched female voice fills your senses, as a scene of impassioned lovemaking unfolds, the final moments of the hostages of Munich plays out simultaneously. And as the lovers climax, and Bana lets out a scream of agony as though he sees the deaths, the hands of his wife reach out and cover his eyes. And in that moment I see hope, hope that newer generations close their eyes to their bloody pasts and move on, move on to that elusive thing they call peace.