There was a fair amount of controversy around Munich when it came out. The allegation was that Spielberg was creating moral relativism between the Palestinian terrorists and the Israeli response.
Usually, I just watch the movie and forgo the DVD Extras, but this time I watched Spielberg's intro, which I thought was good and fair. His analysis: "I'm not making judgments here. I'm filling in a story that has indisputable facts within it and offering a human side..."
It didn't sit with me the wrong way.
Perhaps because I am biased already, I wasn't persuaded that the movie equated the actions of the two. I think it showed the difficult position of the Israeli response and the need to be measured in certain circumstances.
For me, the movie was very powerful and emotional.
I remembered the day back in 1994 (I think it was the first or second day I was in Germany during the summer after my junior year) and I went out to the Munich Olympic Village to track down the memorial (yes, that's what I looked like 14 years ago!).
The athletes village is now housing for regular German folks and the memorial wasn't that easy to find, plus it's not that big, as you can see.
Anyway, the thought of the 11 athletes who were murdered was with me that day and while watching the movie and I shuddered at how much and how little progress has been made since.
In mixing two movies that shouldn't be mixed, I kept thinking of a line from Knocked Up, where the guy says:
"Munich? I loved Munich! It's about time where we had a movie where the
Jews go around capping other guys. Usually, we're the ones who get capped."