MUNICH

Home Is Everything!.
If tomorrow someone comes up to you and tells you that the home you are living, where your parents lived and their parents lived, was (supposed to be )promised to him and his fellow followers some ten centuries ago. And that he has the support of the entire "international community". Will you just pack up and leave?. I won't. I will fight till my death, I'll kill if need be... because home is everything.

Finally Munich got released in Bangalore. I gave Mr. Balram the ditch, but since I couldn't ditch Schumi and the European GP, morning show was the only option. So early morning wake-up (on a sunday morning!), empty stomach, three long hours... if this was Aviator I would have happily slept through. But this was Spielberg not Scorcese, the master in keeping one's interest alive all through the movie.

It was debated whether this was a pro-Jewish or a pro-Palestinian movie. I found it being neither. Although the entire narration is through a set of Jewish eyes, Avner (Eric Bana) is not one of those radical Jews. He is more concerned about his wife, her imminent delivery and then the child, than the job at hand of eliminating the eleven Palestinians which the Mossad think were related to the Munich massacre. And again it is the Palestinian view which rings out more loudly when Ali says, "Home is everything" and that "My father didn't gas any Jews".

I won't divulge any further into the story. Eric Bana is superb as the confused and distressed Avner. After Hector of Troy another memorable tragic hero role. The movie has some awesome scenes. Like the shot were blood slowly spreads over milk spilled on the floor. And the flashback shots of Munich massacre through Avner's eyes. Those will rank among some of Spielberg's finest... remember the tank gun slowly going up aiming the tower in Saving Private Ryan, or Richard Attenborough being timed making "hinges" in a Nazi work-shop in Schindler's List.

There is no climax as such. It ends with the confused state that Avner finds himself in. From the hunter to the one being hunted. To find that, in places of all the seemingly liberal Palestinians he assassinated the more radical replacements taking charge. To some extent it is the same predicament as that of Israel. From having to deal with someone like Arafat and PLO, they now have to deal with a Hamas. Today's Hindu(May 8) had a news piece on the eviction of illegal Jewish settlers from Hebron. It says, "Hebron, a city holy to Jews and Muslims, is home to about 160,000 Palestinians and some 500 ultranationalist Jewish settlers who live in heavily fortified enclaves". How much security can save 500 from 160,000?. How far can a policy of confrontation and brutal assassinations take a country?.