Kino Meditations

How Spielberg’s exercise in restraint displays never-ending conflict on a global scale

**Spoilers below**

In 1993, Schindler’s List was released. Steven Spielberg ends the film with many of the surviving victims of the holocaust visiting the grave of Oskar Schindler, the man who aided them in their escape from the concentration camps, accompanied by the actors who portrayed them in the film. Before that, in the aftermath of the end of the war and having brought a significant number of jews to a factory close to his hometown, Schindler is forced to leave in order to evade capture by the Red Army, since he was a Nazi Party member and war profiteer. The remaining jews wake to a Soviet officer telling them not to go either east or west, as they are not wanted. “They hate you there”, the officer tells them, before they hear of a town “over there” where they can go, walking into the countryside and over the hill, as black-and-white photography transitions into color, and the scene described in the beginning plays out, scored to “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” (“Jerusalem of Gold”).

In 1948, the State of Israel was established in the territory of Palestine, to the protest of Arab leaders. The United Nations had proposed dividing Palestine into two states, allowing for Jewish and Arab people to share the same country. The Israeli Declaration of Independence was proclaimed to signal this, coming into effect on the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine at midnight on the 14^th of May. An ongoing civil war, that had been taking place since November 1947, escalated into a blown-out war, where the expulsion of many Palestinians was accelerated, with many massacres taking place. The British, obligated to maintain order, simply planned their swift withdrawal, intervening seldomly. Several Arab states invaded on the 14^th, and the Arab-Israeli War took place. Israel expanded well beyond the UN-proposed borders, and several hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave their home. Many were killed in these expulsions. This is known as the Nakba, which is Arabic for “catastrophe”. At the end of the war, a formal partition was demarcated in the 1949 Armistice Agreements, the “Green Line”.

Tensions would only worsen over the course of the next several years. 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel in the first 4 years after the Nakba. In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is established, committed to the liberation of Palestine. Jordan then signed a defense pact a few years later with Egypt, which had been in conflict with Israel for a decade at that point, with Israel capturing the Gaza Strip.

In 1967, the Six-Day War takes place. Israel, in a surprise preemptive strike, eliminates most Egyptian air power, and further defeats Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi forces. This allowed for the gain and annexation of the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, Shebaa farms and Golan Heights to the Israeli territory. There were no “two states” anymore. Even more Palestinians were displaced, and the Israeli occupation was in full effect now, an occupation which remains until today. Conflict hasn’t stopped, and in 2002, Israel launched its largest military operation since the Six-Day War. In 2005, a disengagement from the Gaza Strip was put in place, allowing for a reversal of the settler movement, and the evacuation of the Jewish settlements there. However, there were those who opposed this, including Benjamin Netanyahu, who at the time was Finance Minister. Hamas, a Sunni Islamist Palestinian nationalist organization, was formed shortly after, vying to take control of the Strip from the Israeli forces.

In 2023, on October 7^th, Hamas led a large-scale coordinated attack on Israel, claiming many victims and taking several hostages. This prompted a response from Israel, which launched Operation “Swords of Iron” and declared war on Hamas. While there have been many conflicts on the Gaza Strip, like in 2008, 2012 and 2014, none were at this scale, and the level of destruction was unprecedented. Shortages of food, water, medical care and shelter put into question the humanitarian conditions in the region, with international concern growing. Since then, nothing short of a genocide of the Palestinian people has taken place, in one of the most brutal escalations of the war ever seen. These were never isolated events. It has been an ongoing conflict since 1948. In fact, the territory is no stranger to conflict even before then. A video summing up the centuries of war can be found on YouTube, titled “This Land Is Mine”. An animated short accompanied by music (“The Exodus Song”, as performed by Andy Williams), it showcases all the different forces that have come into possession of the Palestinian territory throughout history. From Ancient Egyptians, to Assyrians, to Babylonians, to Greeks, to Romans, to Byzantines, to Crusaders, to Ottoman Turks, to Arabs, to British, to Palestinians, to Zionist Jews, only one has gained from the all this war and bloodshed.

In 2005, Munich, the new Steven Spielberg film, is released in theaters. It adapts the contents of the book “Vengeance”, as it chronicles the Israeli response to the Munich massacre carried out during the 1972 Olympics. In the years since Schindler’s List, Spielberg had directed a sequel to Jurassic Park, which had come out in the same year as the former, Amistad, a historical drama, Saving Private Ryan, a WWII film, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which he dedicated to Stanley Kubrick, who had first asked him to take on the project, Catch Me If You Can and Minority Report in the same year, The Terminal, and finally War of the Worlds, also in 2005. Spielberg, otherwise known for the big blockbuster trend-setters like Jaws, Indiana Jones and ET, had transitioned into drama with The Color Purple in 1985, and since then had alternated between the heavier-themed subject historical films, and the more commercial, star-driven pieces. Written by Eric Roth and Tony Kushner, Munich serves as a response to post-9/11 anxieties felt in America at the time, as well as to the retaliation carried out by the US government to the September attacks, a retaliation which included the deployment of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the film, Eric Bana plays Avner Kaufman, a character based on Yuval Aviv, who was the main source of Vengeance. He is chosen to lead a mission to assassinate eleven Palestinians involved in the massacre, operating with no official ties to Israel, so as to give the Israeli government plausible deniability. Avner is joined by a team of volunteer operatives, from the driver Steve (played by Daniel Craig), toy-maker to bomb-maker Robert (played by Mathieu Kassovitz), former soldier and “cleaner” Carl (played by Ciaran Hinds) and document forger Hans (played by Hanns Zischler). Fueled by a desire to avenge the murdered Israeli athletes in September of 1972, they set out to Europe, to find and kill the men deemed responsible. They are fed information by a French informant going by the name of Louis, played by Mathieu Amalric, and orchestrate the assassination of each of their targets. While the first of these is shot as he is waiting for an elevator, the personal nature of the murder takes a toll on the operatives, who hesitate for a brief moment. They elect to eliminate the rest via bombs, which will also generate more publicity. This proves no easy task, as the explosives keep faulting, adding tension to already tense situations. With each mission, Spielberg showcases his mastery of the form, from long takes, elaborate camera movements, impressive blocking and staging, and incredible sound design, directing your attention precisely to where the director wants it to be at any given moment. He derives tension from even the most banal circumstance, and forces the audience to reckon with the consequences of the actions of our protagonists, who seem at times to be less assured of the virtue of their mission, and at others, more driven than ever before by their hatred and desire for vengeance, to carry the mission out to its bitter end, stopping at nothing to achieve it, including killing innocent bystanders. While at first they go through great trouble to avoid killing the child of one of the targets who is in the same room as her father, they then start showing ambivalence towards other victims as explosions go awry.

It is interesting how Spielberg first introduces the targets of our team of operatives near the beginning of the film. As each name is given, it is interspersed with the name of a victim from the Black September attack. Mossad is no less of a terrorizing force. By the end of the film, we’re no longer sure these people were actually involved in 1972 Olympics attack, or if they were part of something else, other insurgencies from years past. Perhaps the Munich Massacre was the perfect pretext to launch several attacks on several fronts, with the implication that Avner’s team not being the only one on the field also a possibility. A deflated, disillusioned Avner sees his team being picked out one by one as well, and he relocates to Brooklyn, suffering from post-traumatic stress and paranoia. What was it all for? Did it accomplish anything? These questions burden Avner’s conscience, especially since a lot of the people they had killed had their place in the organization simply replaced. There was always someone else to target. It was never going to end.

Earlier, I mentioned that the agents are fed information by a French informant. As it turns out, these informants bought information directly from the terror groups, meaning that they were indirectly financing their enemies. It is also revealed that the main orchestrator of the Munich massacre, Ali Hassan Salameh, is protected by CIA agents, who not only guard him, but fund his activities in exchange for his promise not to attack United States diplomats. American’s history of interventionism and playing both sides here displayed.

There is some concern that the Palestinians are treated here too much like “Faceless Terrorists”, characters without agency, only to be dispatched by Mossad, in what could be perceived as an Israeli revenge fantasy flick. However, I don’t think this is the case. While the film follows the Israeli response, our protagonists are not exactly righteous heroes. The Palestinians are depicted quite sincerely, even if their portrayal could be more fleshed out. The “targets” are not some monsters, or caricatures of Arabs, that can be found in many other films. They’re accomplished professors, writers, and family men. The entire film is made small at the halfway point, when Avner’s team is forced to share space with members of the PLO, having been tricked by Louis, with whom they have grown more hostile. The camera work highlights the differences in power, as Avner is shot to look small in comparison to Ali, who verbalizes the struggle of the Palestinians in the years following the Nakba. Avner, a proclaimed son of Israel, having been born there (so sometime in the late 40s) is forced to face the consequences of his actions, and how they mirror the brutality and raw violence of the actions they set out to counter. While each set-piece is elaborately laid out and perfectly filmed, capturing the tension and enrapturing the audience in suspense, the killings are cold. Devoid of humanity. Keep in mind this is the same director that has been noted for his over-sentimentality and tendencies for saccharine displays. He shows incredible restraint and balance in this film, with an ambiguous approach to the methods employed.

It’s no great realization to understand how this mirrors the state America was in at the time of the film’s development. The procurement of those responsible, as well as the attacks and brutality of the methods mirror those in the film, but on a different scale. The exploration of the cost of vengeance and the endless cycle of violence and revenge is not new in art, but the way it is carried out in this makes it stand out amongst the rest. Perhaps it’s the subject matter itself, which remains timeless, and has always proved contentious, with the film setting out to showcase a dark period of conflict, which could be itself considered insignificant given the scale, in the grand context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Or perhaps it’s Spielberg’s deft touch and boldness in handling this subject matter, as well as bundling the ideas of Jewishness with ideas of the American immigrant, at the end of the film. It is here that Spielberg decides to show a skyline of New York, with an image of the twin towers in the distance. As such, is this a film about Israel, and the never-ending conflict with Palestinians? Or is it, more broadly, about conflict on a global scale?

Before I finish, I want to touch on the climactic scene that plays just before the final scene between Avner and Ephraim, Avner’s handler, played by Geoffrey Rush. Avner is shown having sex with his wife at their home in the US, having flashbacks to the Munich shootings. Quite possibly the most daring sequence of the entire film (maybe even Spielberg’s whole career, who has strayed from sexuality as much as he can for much of his filmography), it has ruined the film for a lot of people. While I understand this sentiment, as it makes me uncomfortable as well, I interpreted this as the moment when Avner is most vulnerable, as most people are, and it is in this moment, when he finds himself in the embrace of his loved one, that he is haunted by his past. A connection between male sexuality and vulnerability is truthful and here represented, even if the execution could have been swifter. It stands to reason that someone with the degree of guilt and trauma Avner has would reflect on his actions during moments of unrestrained emotion.

I started this post by writing a little bit about the history of the conflict, from 1948 onwards, having chosen to only mention the most significant events. This is not mandatory to understand the message of the film, or even to understand its events, but I believe it is important to contextualize, nonetheless. Roger Ebert wrote in his review of this film that the “task of the director is to transmute facts into emotions and beliefs – and beliefs (…) are beliefs precisely because they are not facts”. I agree with this sentiment, which is why I think this film should first be watched through an interested but detached lens, and only then, perhaps, seek out to understand the conflict more deeply. As mentioned earlier, this whole ordeal is almost a footnote in the history of the conflict that has been going on for nearly 80 years. A conflict which has, for the most part, been very one-sided.

Spielberg had alluded to the “promise of Israel” with the ending of Schindler’s List. A land where Jews could finally go and be free, without fear of persecution, having been persecuted and chastised all throughout history. 12 years later, here he is now, drawing a parallel between the actions of a newly formed country, and the ones from 21^st Century America, in the wake of, again, attacks in September. Two countries which have presented themselves as a safe haven for those that saw no other means of suceeding in life, now reduced to oppressors in a never-ending cycle of violence and retaliation. The film is messy in its handling of the various themes. However, the same could be said about the conflict. Perhaps too neat a film would be doing this theme a disservice. Lest we forget, both the filmmaker and the two screenwriters are Jewish. Three Jewish-Americans, reckoning with the actions of two governments, making a film about an Israeli who emigrates to America when he could no longer sustain his Israeli identity.

In 2025, the conflict continues. While there is a peace plan in effect, which has been signed and is effective since October 10^th, there have been numerous violations since. There is no sign of stopping. Values keep being compromised in order to defend them. I don’t know if Palestine will ever be free in my lifetime, but I sure would like to live to see it.

During the meeting of the protagonists with the members of the PLO that I previously mentioned, where the Mossad operatives are forced to pretend to be members of groups like ETA, IRA, ANC and the Red Army Faction, while Avner and Ali discuss their differing perspectives on the conflict outside on the stairs of the building, the rest of the group remain inside the room where they will spend the night. A PLO member attunes the radio to an Arabic Instrumental, before Daniel Craig’s character Steve comes to change it to the French pop song “Des millions d’amoureux” by Georgette Lemaire. The PLO change it again before Steve comes back to alter it. As they go back and forth, they settle on a song they both agree to. That song is Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together”. Art, in this case Music, as the great unifier between peoples, finally finding common ground. If only we could find it in our hearts to do the same, and find a way to Stay Together.