Steven Spielberg's best movie is "Munich", a film about the Mossad's pursuit of the Black September murderers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. One sequence depicts a Mossad agent planting explosives in the home telephone of an Arab emigre living in Paris--a man sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but not one of the killers. Wh…
Steven Spielberg's best movie is "Munich", a film about the Mossad's pursuit of the Black September murderers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. One sequence depicts a Mossad agent planting explosives in the home telephone of an Arab emigre living in Paris--a man sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but not one of the killers. While planting the bomb, the man's pretty Arab daughter--maybe 12 years old--walks into the room to practice piano. The the eyes of the agent and the girl meet, and he is visibly flustered and unnerved, clearly bothered by the idea that she might be a victim when the operation comes to fruition. But plant the bomb he does. In the follow-up scene, the phone rings and the girl moves across the room to answer it. The same Mossad agent is observing the room via binoculars at a distance. Horrified, he commands his fellows by radio to abort the mission lest the girls be blown to bits. A very effective scene.
The message is that the Israelis are the good guys, sensitively distinguishing between innocence and guilt, good and evil. Even at the time of the movie's release, that idea had been proven false many times over. But the recent explosions of thousands of communication devices in impossible-to-foresee situations will make that scene one worthy of audible sneering forevermore. The sound of the champagne corks and loud murmur of self congratulations disgusts me.
Oh, and if you have not seen the movie, the father is finally murdered by the phone bomb.
Steven Spielberg's best movie is "Munich", a film about the Mossad's pursuit of the Black September murderers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. One sequence depicts a Mossad agent planting explosives in the home telephone of an Arab emigre living in Paris--a man sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but not one of the killers. While planting the bomb, the man's pretty Arab daughter--maybe 12 years old--walks into the room to practice piano. The the eyes of the agent and the girl meet, and he is visibly flustered and unnerved, clearly bothered by the idea that she might be a victim when the operation comes to fruition. But plant the bomb he does. In the follow-up scene, the phone rings and the girl moves across the room to answer it. The same Mossad agent is observing the room via binoculars at a distance. Horrified, he commands his fellows by radio to abort the mission lest the girls be blown to bits. A very effective scene.
The message is that the Israelis are the good guys, sensitively distinguishing between innocence and guilt, good and evil. Even at the time of the movie's release, that idea had been proven false many times over. But the recent explosions of thousands of communication devices in impossible-to-foresee situations will make that scene one worthy of audible sneering forevermore. The sound of the champagne corks and loud murmur of self congratulations disgusts me.
Oh, and if you have not seen the movie, the father is finally murdered by the phone bomb.