MY MOVIE SHELF: Munich

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 190  Days to go: 191

Movie #187:  Munich

Brokeback Mountain has grown more esteemed in my mind over the years, but at the time of the 2005 Academy Awards (held in 2006, because that’s how it works), Munich was my favorite of the Best Picture nominees. Profound, powerfully emotional and compelling, Munich is a retelling of the very real events following the 1972 hostage crises at the Munich Olympics. Rather than being what could be nothing more than a typical spy thriller, the film deals with the cost of being a political operative — the mental, emotional and spiritual toll it takes on these men — bringing additional depth and significance to their tale.

Once again, the movie is not a factual account of the events, but it is inspired by them and attempts to portray them honestly within the confines of this particular story about the insanity and the ultimate pointlessness of revenge. In the film, Avner (Eric Bana) is an Israeli intelligence officer who is selected by the government to head up a covert team of operatives to assassinate all the Palestinian terrorists involved in the Munich attack. He resigns from the Israeli government (at the urging of his handler Ephraim, played by Geoffrey Rush) so his actions can not be tied officially to Israel, and is joined by other Jewish specialists from around the world: Steve (Daniel Craig), Carl (Ciaran Hinds), Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz) and Hans (Hanns Zischler).

The group spend lots of time together, tracking down their targets and devising plans to assassinate them, kind of stumbling through the process — clearly unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the particulars of hired hits. In between, they struggle with the moral implications of their acts, how they are both seemingly justified and undermining the tenets of their religion. These struggles manifest themselves in the arguments they have among themselves and the frantic attempts to keep from harming any innocent victims.

The moral ground — and the group’s collective and individual sanity — gets muddled further as the group themselves find they are being targeted as well. In their attempts to defend and avenge their fallen, the group — and particularly Avner, being the focus of the film — delve deeper into paranoia and madness. As he finally flees his service and this mission — having moved his family to Brooklyn since he no longer feels they are safe in Israel — it’s clear he won’t ever fully regain his former contentment.

Munich explores the ambiguity of covert operations — sort of secret wars, in their way — and of the axiom of taking a life for a life. In many ways, the revenge operatives feel impassioned about their mission, driven to fulfill their obligations and avenge the fallen athletes, but in other ways it is clear the mission is wearing on the men. They seek solace and peace, even as they feel the pain of the loss of these Jewish lives. At the same time, however, Avner encounters a Palestinian operative who, like him, is just a man trying to do right by his people. In many ways, this is not meant to justify their actions but to decry them as counterproductive and just as harmful to the soul of the assassin as to the targeted victim.

I find gray areas compelling, as I often can see the pros and cons, the ups and downs of many situations, and I find that many movies don’t adequately explore those unanswerable questions. Munich sells itself short a bit at the end, admitting that none of the seven people Avner’s group murdered were necessarily tied to the Munich attack, thereby making the film’s morality much more clearly delineated, but up until that point it exists quite firmly in the middle, not able to either fully support or fully denounce these acts of revenge. In many ways, they are portrayed as necessary, but there is also a solid feel of underhandedness, which seems less of an endorsement and more of an indictment. That ambiguity makes Munich a stellar and fascinating film that, even if it’s no longer my favorite film of its year, still ranks among the best.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Elizabeth

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 281  Days to go: 273

Movie #96: Elizabeth

Let’s talk about the word “virgin.” As we’re all aware, and as this movie depicts, Elizabeth I was known as the Virgin Queen. But as this movie also depicts, that moniker had nothing whatsoever to do with the queen’s sexual experience.

One of the best and most memorable classes I ever took was a Mythology and Religion course my very first semester in college. Despite what most people realize — or, to be sure, what most Christians advertise — religions dating back far before the advent of Christianity feature tales of virgin births. All kinds of ancient beliefs, from across the globe, present the mythos of the virgin birth as a tenet and foundation of their cultures. What we learned, however, was that the word “virgin” didn’t always mean what it means today. Language, culture, evolves over time. “Virgin,” at that time, meant any woman who was no longer under the rule of her father but not yet under the rule of a husband. So, a single woman, basically. And since religions and cultures the world over have oppressed women and shackled them with a moral obligation not held to men, it was assumed that no woman who wasn’t married would be having sex, which is how the term “virgin” came to mean someone who has never had sex. Hence, the term “virgin birth” really meant nothing more than “unwed mother.” Puts a lot of things in perspective, don’t you think?

Anyway, just as virgin meant unwed there, it means unwed here. Queen Elizabeth I was not sexually inexperienced — certainly not according to Elizabeth the movie, but also suggested by many historical texts — she simply refused to marry.

Elizabeth starts during the reign of Elizabeth’s (Cate Blanchett) sister, Queen Mary Tudor (Kathy Burke), killing off all the heretic Protestants in England, of which Elizabeth is one. (Thus inventing the grossest alcoholic drink imaginable, the Bloody Mary. “Mix my precious vodka with grainy, bitter tomato juice, please. And while you’re at it, stick a plant in the glass.”) Many advisers to the queen are urging her to have Elizabeth executed as well, so she will not ascend to the throne and kill off all the Catholics. (The amount of killing done in the name of one God or another — and honestly, a Catholic God and a Protestant God aren’t all THAT different — over the entire course of human history, I swear. Do we have nothing better to do?) Mary delays and eventually dies of her false-pregnancy-inducing cancer, and Elizabeth succeeds her.

The tense religious divides in England at the time created a lot of political upheaval as well, and the movie focuses largely on the constant pressure on Elizabeth to marry and align with either France or Spain (marriage to an eccentric, orgy-loving cross-dressing Vincent Cassel, perhaps?) to secure England’s safety and the constant threats to Elizabeth’s life and throne (the 9th Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, is here masquerading as the Duke of Norfolk, and he’s out for blood, which is funny considering the 10th Doctor’s preference for Elizabeth).

Blanchett is positively stunning in her ability to downplay her natural beauty in favor of Elizabeth’s hard and stoic face, and yet still charm her court with quick wit and a sharp mind that is almost playful at times. I love Shakespeare in Love and I adore Gwyneth in it, but I really really really wish Cate had won the Oscar for Elizabeth, and not just because she wore that outstanding sheer black John Galliano dress that year, with the unbelievable hummingbird and floral embroidery across the back.

Elizabeth in the film is pulled apart emotionally by the stress of reigning over England, of making sound decisions, and of her desire to be with her favorite (and lover) Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes). She eschews a lot of marriage pressure from advisers like the lovely and recently departed Richard Attenborough as Sir William Cecil in favor of spending time with Sir Robert, but when she finds out about Robert’s wife, she discards him (leading him to accidentally kill one of Elizabeth’s lady maids played by Kelly Macdonald by having her put on the queen’s dress so he can fuck the queen vicariously, I guess, but the dress was poisoned, so he also kind of accidentally saved Elizabeth in this instance, although that didn’t stop her from cutting him off but good. “You love me so much you’d have me be your whore?!”) and starts following the council of Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), who is loyal as fuck, going so far as to sex-murder the French threat Mary de Guise (Fanny Ardant) and torturing the holy hell (haha) out of an unfortunately coiffed Daniel Craig as a vicious, murderous priest. Eventually treason is committed by Norfolk and slew of others and Elizabeth has them all beheaded except for the fallen, traitorous Dudley “to always remind me of how close I came to danger,” because Elizabeth was a badass and better than all of them. She had the heart of a lion.

To further state her point (in case the heads on spikes didn’t do it), she has lady maid Emily Mortimer cut off all her hair and gussy her up in a wig and all her queenly trimmings with heavily caked white makeup on every inch of her skin, and pronounce her marriage to England. She will have no other master. It’s just about the ballsiest thing ever done, and I can’t properly express how much I want to be Elizabeth in that moment — strong, confident, powerful, and does not give a fuck.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen Elizabeth — it’s not really one of the most rewatchable films ever made, great and deserving of your respect as it is — but I enjoy the hell out of it. Even with all the players and all the plots, the movie never loses its way and manages to be full of intrigue and suspense and betrayal. It’s a commanding film about one of history’s most revered and influential leaders of all time — a woman who, at the age of 25, took the highly contested throne of a country in turmoil and reigned for 44 years, turning England into one of the richest and most-influential kingdoms in the world, LIKE A BOSS — and I absolutely love it.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Defiance

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 295  Days to go: 282

Movie #82: Defiance

This never happens. I bought this movie sometime several years ago, having never seen it and knowing nothing about it, because it was in the Wal-Mart bargain bin I think and I recalled maybe hearing good things about it from trusted sources. (That is perhaps my husband’s influence. I’m not one to invest in a movie I’m not certain of.) The thing is, I’m pretty sure I watched it at some point after that, or tried to at least, but I think it bored me to tears or I couldn’t follow it or something. I really can’t remember. In fact, I have no concrete memories of it at all — not what it was supposed to be about, not of it ever being in theaters or when that may have been, nothing. So I approached today’s task with trepidation.

By sheer luck (or maybe I knew this at some point in the past and simply forgot, who knows), it turns out the movie is based on the true story of Jewish revolutionaries who fought against capture in Belarus and survived in forest camps for over two and a half years. I will pretty much watch any story of Jews escaping, overcoming or otherwise defeating Nazis (because fuck those guys), even if it turns out to be Life is Beautiful and I hate it. So I was on board with this one.

Defiance tells the story of the Bielski brothers, Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber), Asael (Jamie Bell) and Aron (George MacKay), who escaped to the woods when their parents were murdered in a Jewish Ghetto in 1941. Together with a few of their neighbors, they built a small camp and defended themselves against SS units. Soon, more people escaped to the camp, then more, then more. They learned to fight and to shoot, learned to make and repair weapons, and managed to build an entire community from the ground up, amid the trees. All in all, over 1200 Jews were saved by the Bielskis. That’s fucking badass.

The movie itself isn’t perfect, but it is interesting. Zus is the more hostile, angrier brother. He and Tuvia (also violent and angry at times, but much more commanding and in control) lock horns over the constant influx of refugees into their camp, compete with each other for position and authority, and eventually have a falling out that leaves Zus joining the nearby Russian troops to fight the Nazis outright. Their conflicts are mirrored throughout the rest of the camp, too, as people begin to question Tuvia’s leadership, inequalities and resentments start to rise and a more savage aspect of human nature rears its head from time to time.

Asael and Aron are the younger brothers (Aron being just a boy) but Asael steps into a leadership role of his own, becoming a brave and skilled fighter and teaching the women how to shoot as well. One young woman in particular, Chaya (played by Mia Wasikowska two years before her breakout in The Kids Are All Right), notices Asael and when he rescues her parents from one of the Ghettos, falls in love with him. There is a really interesting scene where Asael and Chaya’s wedding celebration (held in gorgeous light snowfall) is intercut with a tense and bloody shootout between Zus’s regiment and a caravan of enemy soldiers. It highlights the strange dichotomy they lived in, of love and war, of death all around them while life continues on.

Things come to a head in the camp, though, as one of the chief and more vocal dissenters to Tuvia’s command (a bully who sexually harasses Chaya every chance he gets), takes advantage of a time when Tuvia is weak with sickness to forcefully takeover the camp and decree that he and his fighters will eat better than the others. Tuvia says this is not allowed, that everyone gets the same rations, and when he’s told his command is over, shoots the dissenter dead in a flash and says anyone who doesn’t like his rules is free to go. It’s both awesome and terrifying, because on one hand he’s fighting for the survival of the group but on the other he is a strict and uncompromising dictator.

It’s a relief, then, that a woman in the camp who Tuvia rescued from a Ghetto, Lilka (Alexa Davalos), nurses him back to health, grows to love him, and helps him to hold on to the humanity of their people. She and Isaac Malbin, an intellectual in his former life, (played by Mark Feuerstein, who I love, always, but still have to look up the spelling of his name every time) provide a solid foundation of heart and community for the camp, and they help it to grow into a resilient and close-knit society.

There are some weird moments, like when tense fight scenes are scored with soaring, sorrowful compositions, but overall it’s a pretty successful telling of a truly harrowing and heroic story of real people, real sacrifice and real survival. There’s a great climax as well, complete with a deadly battle, unlikely salvation, and satisfying reconciliation, which makes for a good movie ending. Pretty happy with myself for somehow buying this one.