Munich Black

慕尼黑

Yes I know its MUNICH. But whats with the 黑??

Anyway its kinda hard to recollect my overwhelming thoughts that were swimming in my brain juices when I walked outta cinema yest night. Came home, bro screwed up the internet connection, received signal only at 1am. This whole working day was spent rushing my statements for submission, super tired.

Try lah hor.. (Munich spoilers and long-winded post alert!)

1stly, Munich is a SUPER-HARD-TO-UNDERSTAND-AND-COMPLEX 160min movie. My knowledge of Munich b4 the hype on the movie was only limited to that its a place on earth, got football team, no more. N Olympics is an event that takes place every 4 yearly with bidding countries aiming to host it for the tourism income it generates.

Since its a NC-18 film, although I personally think it should be RA-ed, there's a lot of blood spewing, and nude scenes. A bit too much. Even Saving Private Ryan aint so bad. The blood were literally SHOOTING out of the puncture points like fountain! Shit! And the 1st thing that comes into my mind is chocolate fondue. Mwehehhehee.. Dunno y.

The movie depicts the kidnapping and massacre of the Israeli athletes by Black September, a Palestinian group. Later on, Israeli Avner (Eric Bana) was requested by Prime Minister Golda Meir to go undercover and sets out to eliminate those involved in Munich 1972. In between Avner's targets, there were news reports of bombings and terrorist attacks carried out in Israel. Avner's hit squad then joined forces with men provided by Louie to delete targets in Beirut, which turned out to be a messy gun-fight, involving fatality of several civilians. Avner's squad became the targets of other mercenaries. One-by-one, his team was reduced. Avner tracked the location of one of the murderers of his team mate and proceeded to exterminate her. Even so, his team continued to be targetted.

With all the Mossad, CIA, FBI flying around, I feel like playing Covert Action once again! But sadly, it was a 3 1/2 inch floppy game and already mouldy after existing for more than 10 yrs.

From fumbling with their guns at the 1st target, to devising bombs in telephones, TV sets and under the mattress. From hunting to being the hunted. From going thru the list one-by-one, to eliminating little figures or replacements not targetted in the mission. Slowly they begin to question their beliefs. Are they killing to revenge the athletes? To prove that the terrorists are wrong? To prove that Israelis are capable of fighting back? Or to satisfy Mossad's hunger for power? To accomplish Mossad's ulterior motive of eliminating their targets under the shield of revenging the athletes' massacre?

I love the guns disguised as bicyle pumps that they used to shoot the female mercenary. So cool! But disadvantage is that the user has to unscrew the knob and takes a bit of time to reload. But still.. DAMN COOL!~

In the telephone bombing assassination, Avner barely managed to stop the detonation of the hidden bomb in the face of the innocent daughter of the target. Although they succeeded in severely injuring the target without injuring the innocent, it wasnt a clean kill as they had planned. The target only succumbed to his multiple injuries hrs later in the hospital.

The next bomb killing was so powerful it almost killed Avner and the couple on both sides of the target's room. At least they're sure they got the target completely.

From then on, it became an alert siren going off in the major agencies. CIA, FBI were beginning to hunt down Avner & gang while increasing the security of their undercover informants, who in turn, are the targets on the list. Avner can now trust no one, not even the source of his leads.

The psychological fear of knowing that u've been targetted is very much represented by Avner and Robert. Both were so paranoid that they dismantled every place that they had previously used to hide bombs for their targets and every single object that could be used to stuff a bomb. Avner was so fearful that he slept on the closet floor, and turns up looking like a zombie. Its like seeing the sniper laser aiming your body but u cant identify the source.

As the movie progresses, Avner's squad derailed from their main mission. They eradicate a replacement, which was not on their list, for one of the targets they killed earlier and a Dutch mercenary, who murdered one of his team mates. Now, they're not sure if their mission will really benefit the country they believe they're risking their lives for, since replacements will appear to take over the tasks of the eliminated.

In their last assassination plot, Avner is left with only one team mate to kill the mastermind of the Munich massacre, knowing that the extermination of this man would mean freedom for his team. It was foiled by a watcher patrolling the grounds and stumbling onto their hiding place after which they ran frantically, chased by raining bullets.

Even after he got back with his family, Avner was still haunted by scenes of the massacre and the terror of being hunted. He feared for his family but angered and burdened by the massacre playback in his mind.

For the helicopter bullet war, let me, this naive psychologist, do a bit of analyzing. (I did a Yahoo search on the actual event.)

The terrorists initially demanded a release of imprisoned Palestinian criminals, which the Prime Minister refused, then changing their ransom to a getaway chopper. In the event, the military placed snipers around the chopper, which was unmanned after the crew decided to vote out of the mission, citing under-equipped and under-prepared as reasons. The terrorists packed the athletes in the chopper, the leader got out to locate the missing crew or negotiate. The snipers opened fire, the terrorists shot their machine guns blindly, sweeping the whole area.

As to why they bomb the hostaged athletes, maybe they already know they'll die no matter what. They're isolated and surrounded, 2 choppers in an open landing pad, makes them sitting ducks for easy targets. If they were killed and the Israeli athletes were released unharmed, it would be a win for Germany/Israel. In the movie, they actually hesitated a min to kill the athletes (the part where the terrorists looked at the athletes' horrified faces in the chopper). So since they're going to die, they might as well take some accompaniment and also make their voices heard, that Palestine is capable of doing what they said they'll do.

There was actually only 8 terrorists, but there's more than 8 in the film, perhaps to align with the number of athletes. 5 terrorists were dead at the gunfire battle in the helipad, 3 got away. The mastermind aka Salameh, was killed by a car bomb in 1979.

The role of the assassins brings about different interpretation for the different people the value of the mission is for. Back in Palestine, the assassins were worshipped as heroes. In Israeli, they're terrorists. But they're still the same people, even though there's actually tamer ways to make ur voices heard.

There's another controversy. In the actual event, the 1972 Olympics was told to proceed with only one day suspension for the massacre on September 5. Avery Brundage, the then IOC president, had ordered the continuation of the games, in midst of the grief event. This led to the angst of many, who were unsatisfied that Avery had decided to continue the games, in full glory and cheers, even after 17 deaths.

The moral of the movie is the same as what Gundam Seed (or maybe all Gundam series) is trying to portray: There's no end to revenge. It only increases the loss.

Its true. 冤冤相报何时了