Holiday Movies
The winter holidays are always a good time to catch up on movies. This is true not only because I have lots of free time with family that lends itself to this particular activity, but also because studios know this is the case and tend to release some long-anticipated movies at that time.
Over the break I saw three great movies: Munich, King Kong and Syriana --- and in the spirit of sharing some thoughts in blog form, here are some on Munich. I'll try to post tomorrow on the other two.
Munich
Hailed by some as Speilberg's most controversial film to date, I was both impressed and disappointed upon leaving the theater.
This movie has a great spin on an old topic: the Arab-Israeli conflict. The essential point of this movie is to demonstrate the moral ambiguity and questionable efficacy of the circle of violence that has the Middle East trapped. The vengeance operation after the Munich terrorist attacks is a great historical event to illustrate this point. It definitely has a pro-Israeli slant, but I think that's just because the majority of the face time is spent with an Israeli hit team, thus the dialogue tends to go that way.
I was impressed by several components of the plot, especially the flow and the ending. While it did not move that quickly, there was a good rhythym established that was punctuated just enough to keep you guessing, but not so much that you lost track of where it was going. The point is not to keep you from following the movie, as the track is pretty straightforward, but instead to engage you as a participant in the movie. The audience is brought in and made complicit in these vengeance killings, and it brings to the fore feelings of guilt, triumph, and confusion.
The filming was very well done - some great camera work and direction, especially around integrating the flashback scenes. The acting was also great -- nothing spectacular, but some very solid performances.
Which brings me to what disappointed me: the lack of depth in the dialogue/plot. While some would say, and in fact many have said, that this film has fathoms of 'implied' depth or some such nonsense, I don't really think Speilberg went as deep into the moral ambiguity as he could have done in a 3 hour long movie. He did not explore to my satisfaction the inherent contradictions involved in vengeance operations. He did not go into the dialogue with the "other side" nearly as much as he could have (there is one great scene with this, but it's only about 5-10 minutes). The ending demonstrates this well, but again it's all implied. It would have been much more powerful and would not have lost any of it's subtelty if he had been more upfront with it.
The winter holidays are always a good time to catch up on movies. This is true not only because I have lots of free time with family that lends itself to this particular activity, but also because studios know this is the case and tend to release some long-anticipated movies at that time.
Over the break I saw three great movies: Munich, King Kong and Syriana --- and in the spirit of sharing some thoughts in blog form, here are some on Munich. I'll try to post tomorrow on the other two.
Munich
Hailed by some as Speilberg's most controversial film to date, I was both impressed and disappointed upon leaving the theater.
This movie has a great spin on an old topic: the Arab-Israeli conflict. The essential point of this movie is to demonstrate the moral ambiguity and questionable efficacy of the circle of violence that has the Middle East trapped. The vengeance operation after the Munich terrorist attacks is a great historical event to illustrate this point. It definitely has a pro-Israeli slant, but I think that's just because the majority of the face time is spent with an Israeli hit team, thus the dialogue tends to go that way.
I was impressed by several components of the plot, especially the flow and the ending. While it did not move that quickly, there was a good rhythym established that was punctuated just enough to keep you guessing, but not so much that you lost track of where it was going. The point is not to keep you from following the movie, as the track is pretty straightforward, but instead to engage you as a participant in the movie. The audience is brought in and made complicit in these vengeance killings, and it brings to the fore feelings of guilt, triumph, and confusion.
The filming was very well done - some great camera work and direction, especially around integrating the flashback scenes. The acting was also great -- nothing spectacular, but some very solid performances.
Which brings me to what disappointed me: the lack of depth in the dialogue/plot. While some would say, and in fact many have said, that this film has fathoms of 'implied' depth or some such nonsense, I don't really think Speilberg went as deep into the moral ambiguity as he could have done in a 3 hour long movie. He did not explore to my satisfaction the inherent contradictions involved in vengeance operations. He did not go into the dialogue with the "other side" nearly as much as he could have (there is one great scene with this, but it's only about 5-10 minutes). The ending demonstrates this well, but again it's all implied. It would have been much more powerful and would not have lost any of it's subtelty if he had been more upfront with it.
posted by slithytoves at 5:32 PM
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