- "Duino Elegy"
On August 26, 1972, the 20th Olympic Games was held in Munich, the former Federal Republic of Germany. At that time, people all over the world will focus on Munich, and people will talk about and look forward to a peaceful and pleasant event. Most countries, including Israel, sent their largest and most luxurious delegations to date. Although it is the Arab-Israeli war, people hope that in the Olympic Games, we can temporarily forget the pain of those wars and use the peaceful spirit of sports to resolve the gloom of ethnic conflicts. However, Munich was not so lucky this year, and the Jews were not so lucky this year. This year Munich witnessed the most tragic scene in the history of the Olympic Games. This year the Jewish nation experienced the saddest event after the Nazi massacre: in the early morning of September 5, 8 heavily armed "Black September" Palestinian terrorists broke into Israel The delegation was stationed there, kidnapped 9 Israeli athletes and 2 coaches, and demanded that the Israeli government release 256 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli prisons. As a result, the negotiation failed, the West German police rescue operation was unsuccessful, and neither the terrorists nor the Israeli hostages were spared. This is the "Munich Massacre" that shocked the world.
To this day, we have no way of knowing whether the Israeli athletes cried out to God when they were shot, whether they saw the wings of an angel... And when the ethereal female voice in the opening credits of "Munich" sounded mournfully, I remembered. "Lament". It is true that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no longer a new topic, and stories about the activities of terrorist organizations are not uncommon on the big screen. Only last year's masterpieces that showed these two themes were "Heaven Now" and "Syrina". However, Spielberg's Jewish identity still caused "Munich" to attract a lot of criticism. In fact, in the earlier "Schindler's List", Steiner pointed the camera at his suffering nation. He used gray and cold tones and only a little bright red, which moved hundreds of millions of viewers. . In 2005, he stepped on the minefield again and filmed this "Munich" which tells the story of Jewish revenge with the Munich massacre as the background. Compared with the innocent Jewish image in "Schindler's List", in "Munich" the Jewish nation is no longer a simple group worthy of sympathy, and they also began to play the disgusting avenger.
Spielberg said in an interview: The "Munich Massacre" was not put on the screen to teach some kind of preaching to the world, and he did not think that any book, film or work of art could break today's The stalemate in the Middle East, in the process of killing each other between Israel and the Palestinians, someone must stand up and cry for peace, because the biggest enemy in the Middle East is not the Palestinians or the Israelis, but the uncompromising and distrusting people in the region. Atmosphere, although the film tells the story of vendetta, it is actually a prayer for peace.
Indeed, I have never doubted Spielberg's efforts as a humanitarian director, what we see in "Munich" is not only the cruelty of revenge and the preaching of peace, but more of a A Guided Thinking: Why Is That? Why must it be so?
"Why does it have to be so?" The Middle East is a miserable region, even though she has given birth to the most perfect monotheisms in the world: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But what these religions brought to their mothers was not happiness and harmony, but bloodshed and murder, not only the labor pains of childbirth, but the despair of facing the wall of brotherhood. From the Crusades in the Middle Ages to the crisis in the Middle East in this century, religion has always played a disgraceful role in national issues. When people engage in terrorist activities under the banner of religion, the value of religion to human beings has already been wiped out. It has become an excuse, a reason given by God. This reason allows us to kill as much as we want without having any psychological burden. This reason makes us all. Injustice becomes justified. It was this reason that led young Palestinian youths to take to the squares of Tel Aviv to carry out suicide bombings ("Heaven Now"), and it was this reason that the five-member assassination team, including Avner, followed the Mossad's plan of 11. The List of Men launches revenge on the European continent ("Munich")...
Death becomes intuitive and mournful in the film, young lives paved the way to the Temple Mount with patriotic zeal but never listened to the prophet's words: You rulers of Doma, Listen to the word of the Lord! You people of Gomorrah, pay attention to the teachings of our God! Yahweh said, "What good is it to me that you have offered many sacrifices? I have had enough of the burnt offering of rams and the fat of fattened animals. I am not pleased with the blood of bulls, the blood of lambs, and the blood of goats. You come to me, who asks you for these things, that you trample my courts? Do not make vain offerings any more. I abhor incense, and the New Moon and the Sabbath, and the convocation, I abhor I cannot bear your sins and solemn meetings. Your new moons and feasts are hated in my heart, and I consider them troublesome; I bear them, and I am impatient. You raise your hands in prayer, and I will cover your eyes. Look; even your many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of murderous blood. Wash yourselves, cleanse yourselves, and put away your evil deeds from my sight; stop doing evil, learn to do good, and seek justice to rescue the oppressed, to avenge the fatherless, and to plead for the widow.” The LORD said, “Come and let us argue with one another. Although your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will be as white as wool. If you obey willingly, you will eat the good things of the earth; but if you do not obey, but disobey, you will be swallowed up by the sword.” This is what the LORD himself said. ("Is: 1; 10-20") They thought that the sacrifices offered in blood were the best holy offerings to the gods, but they forgot that the Lord did not expect the sacrifice of his subjects. Rilke said: "Killing is a form of our wandering sorrow..." People stubbornly believe that the times need sacrifice, and so is the homeland. Palestinian youths selected by terrorist groups should be happy because they are giving their lives for their homeland, and the same is true. Avner, who was chosen by the Mossad, should also be grateful that the country will be honored by them. However, this is their wishful thinking. Killing can't stop the hatred between nations, and the way of violence will only bring more cruel vendetta.
"You Europeans won't understand that you can go back to your own country, your home, after you fail. And we, we don't have a home. You'll never understand what it's like to be without a home." When Ali said to Avner the Palestinian Arab When people are homeless, in Spielberg's lens, the hostility between the two nations is transformed into understanding. In fact, no one is wrong. The desire for home is the sustenance of the wandering nation. In this way, the same is true for the Palestinian Arabs after the establishment of the state. Avner, who longed for the illusion of "home" in the cupboard, was the same as Ali, who worked for a terrorist organization with a pistol. What they needed was a warm land of peace and a home to live in. However, the bewitchment of faith and the incitement of enthusiasm make the young people go one after another towards destruction.
In "Heaven Now," Said keeps asking: Why must this be the case, can't there be another way? In the game of killing and revenge, both Jews and Arabs tragically played both victims and murderers. This time, history has no choice but to walk in a cycle of despair.
Spielberg used a set of parallel montages to organically combine the Munich massacre and the revenge of Avner and others. When he connected the shots, he not only connected two different time and space, but also connected the Jewish killers and the victims. The embarrassing identity of the killer.
Yes, history cannot be reversed, the dead cannot be resurrected, and the living must continue to move forward. There may be nothing we can do to kill us, but we can still pray for the dawn of peace in the bloodstained sorrow of the movie. Although Saeed eventually went down the road of suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, we also hear Avner's NO in "Munich", and perhaps in the image of the twin towers in Steiner's final shot, for peace Wail-like prayers are truly invaluable.
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