From Casablanca to Munich

It has been a weekend of movies for me. I watched the 1942 – Casablanca and the 2005 – Munich, an old and a new movie. Both of them were great in in their own accord. I had tried in vain to get hold of Casablanca when I was in Chennai. The moment I saw it here, I was ecstatic to the core. I’ve virtually seen all the movies pertaining to WW I and WW II. Casablanca was evading me for long and now it has been added to my list as well. The movie is about Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) who could help his ex-love, Ilse Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinreid) escape from the clutches of the Nazis. But he detests Ilse because he feels she had ditched him for the sake of Victor and so he is reluctant to help them. The story thus revolves around the conflicts between Rick’s love and his virtue. The movie has some strong sentimental dialogues and some powerful political insinuations. In all, it is a great movie and has sure lived up to all the hype that has been surrounding it since the day it was released.

Steven Spielberg – The name needs no introduction. Munich is his latest venture. The movie is based on the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by the Palestinian rebels. Spielberg calls this movie a, “Historical Fiction” because his movie is based on the rumours that spread after the Munich incident that the then Prime Minister of Israel, Ms. Golda Meir had ordered the Israeli secret service agency, the Mossad to track down and decimate all the Black September (a unit of Palestinian fedayeen) terrorists who were behind the massacre. Protagonist Avner (Eric Bana) is the Mossad agent who leads a team of four, including the latest 007, Daniel Craig in this high profile mission. They have to locate 11 high profile PLO rebels and slay them. The story revolves around this. They travel all across Europe to track the rebels. Spielberg has not taken any side in this movie. He is neither in the side of the Israelis nor in the sides of the Palestinians. He portrays this succinctly in the climax when Avner understands that blood is not the solution for blood. After the disappointing movie, War of the Worlds, Spielberg has bounced back with the ‘must watch’ movie, ‘Munich’.