Just another dent in the damage…

Why is it then that Munich caused so much controversy?

I don’t know what made me more uncomfortable, the historical inaccuracies, the humanisation of terrorists and terrorism, the justification of vengeance or the unnecessary wah wah self-righteousness of the Jewish protagonists. As a ‘fictionalised account’ of the Munich aftermath Spielberg does awfully well at making a case FOR Israel through the rationalisation of violence as a counterattack on violence and the virtuous nature of Judaism. Golda Meir hammers home this very sentiment by claiming that ‘every civilisation finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values’. On the one hand I feel that Spielberg’s intention was to portray a moral equivalence between the Palestinian and the Israeli assassins (and later today’s war on terror through pre-9/11 New York imagery) that to a certain extent blames Israel for the shameful history of the Middle Eastern conflict but on the other he’s not ashamed to portray the Israelis in a more favourably light as ‘The Decent’.

We’re Jews, Avner. Jews don’t do wrong doing because our enemies do wrong. we’re supposed to be righteous. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s Jewish.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Spielberg was asked whether he believes the support offered by Golda Meir for the Operation Wrath of God was a mistake.

I believe that Israel’s prime minister had to respond to the monstrous provocation of Munich: Jews were being killed in Germany, and that at the Olympic Games. She could not let an act with such historical implications, such a gross transgression by the Black September movement, go unpunished. Munich was a national trauma for Israel. So in principle I think she did the right thing.

Whether, like President Bush you dehumanise terrorists in order to justify war crimes and illegal war on terror or like Spielberg you humanise terrorism in order to draw a relative morality I think it is important to remember that killing terrorists/extremists is futile; It doesn’t matter who you kill there will always be someone else ready to take their place. It is also highly unlikely in reality that the real Mossad agents experienced the moral soul-searching that the tortured hero, Avner suffered from and subsequently left the secret service because of. Operation Wrath of God disbanded when ‘amateurs killed the wrong guy’, there is no remorse when killing is an order.

Last night’s documentary Munich: Mossad’s Revenge was absolutely brilliant, especially the reconstruction of Barak’s infamous donning of female attire in the Beirut shootings. During the 1972 Olympics in Munich a dozen Israeli athletes were kidnapped by a PLO group known as Black Sunday demanding the release of their fighters in Israeli prisons. In a botched rescue attempt 11 Israeli athletes, 5 Palestinian agents and a German officier lost their lives. Today sees the general release of Spielbergs’ new controversial film Munich which follows the aftermath of these attacks through the eyes of agents working for the ‘Operation Wrath of God.’ I found two interesting articles here and here but I intend to give my general opinion after I’ve seen it this weekend!

The film adaptation of the best-selling novel Memoirs of a Geisha follows the story of a young Japanese girl sold to a geisha house in Kyoto during the late 1930s. The narrative development comes courtesy of the fictional true confessions of Sayuri’s forbidden desire for love and happiness while one of Japan’s most celebrated geisha. In traditional Japanese culture the literary meaning of geisha is ‘a person of the arts;’ a woman trained in the native practice of tea ceremony, ikebana and poetry. For a geisha it is customary to insist that rich men pay for their talents and polite conversation rather than their sexual services. In ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ however, this central ideology is reversed as Sayuri’s virginity is sold off to the highest bidder.

What I found most striking about Memoirs of a Geisha is its westernisation of 1940s Japan through the post World War II imagery centered very much around the American military. Sayuri returns from her exile during the war to a place flooded with American soldiers and make-shift taverns where the accustomed geisha is replaced by any oriental female in red lipstick. The authenticity of this film I feel mainly suffered from the use of English dialect (especially as I believed Ziya Zhang was unable to speak a word of it) and the tendency to tone down the visual iconography of a geisha’s dress and makeup. The purpose of diluting this image I feel was to occupy a central ground between the imposing contrasts of contemporary makeup styles and the ‘grotesque’ image of a Western drag queen. More importantly however is the somewhat conscious refusal of director Rob Marshall to recognise the diversity of culture not only between the East and West but between the regions of Asia through his castings of CHINESE actresses to play divine JAPANESE geishas (a point that I didn’t pick up on until today.)

Since the war when Japan invaded parts of China and brutally disregarded the Chinese people, national identity is a trait likely to cause much aggression should ignorant pan-Asianism occur. It is still unknown whether the film will get its scheduled February release in China due to the uproar Zhang et al have provoked by depicting ‘relationships with Japanese men as common prostitutes’ but as far as a movie about Japan played by Chinese actors/actresses written by whites and shot mainly in America (L.A,) I think it’s pretty good.

Who Cares? I care.

I wonder if the 300+ people standing on the banks of the Thames this weekend have any idea what Japanese Whaling is and the fact that thousands of these animals are killed each year ‘in the name of science’ and the luxurious meat market. I can’t help but think that the reaction of the crowd (cheering each time the whale emerged to breath) somewhat contributed to it’s demise.

“The noise from the excitable crowd thronging the banks causes police to issue a request to keep quiet – apparently vets helping care for the animal think all the unfamiliar noise is causing it stress.”

I also wonder whether the crowd would have been just as supportive of a ‘Free Willy’ plight to save a beached Great White.