TO my eternal shame I go to the movies for very base reasons - to laugh or to see things go bang or to be transported to a realm of fantasy.
I tend not to give a hoot about any interwoven message or even truth when it comes to the cinema, so thes revies tend to send me to sleep: there was one in the Herald Sun yesterday that went on and on about its innaccuracies from a Jewish point of view - well I for one dont draw my understanding of anything from cinematic portayals on the silver screen.

The funniest review I read was in the same paper and Andrew Bolts shot at Finding Nemo - he found underlying evil in the movie because there was a throw away line about America ( not complimentary ) and some scenes about non meat eating sharks ( further evidence of new age/green conspiracies to brainwash the young).

They're just fillums

Colin

A mainstream Jewish American producer didn’t produce a movie sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. How odd!

Your expectation was…?

You say there is too much balance or moral equivalence. It’s a positive strength of Speilberg's movie that it did not overly favour the more popular Israeli view.

The film obviously did not adhere to your sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

On to other things:

The "strong sex scenes" warning (they are really tame) is a feeble attempt to attract a wider audience to the cinema. The graphic violence leaves the most lasting impression.

The spying and tradecraft issues are of interest (to me). The hit team all meeting and loudly chatting about their acheivements in public (while drinking heavily) is totally unrealistic. The film (a study in assassination) is way outside the normal intelligence process though.

My main interest is covered in the Guardian of 26 January 2006 http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1695135,00.html:

“The issue of authenticity still matters because Israel's policy of covert state-sponsored assassination continues: Israel has had no hesitation in assassinating Palestinian leaders since the second intifada began in September 2000.

...there is little sign of agonising by the agents interviewed for the [2] TV documentaries. Officers K and G [actually involved in the revenge missions] ...come across as tougher and more hard-bitten than Spielberg's agents.

Officer G, asked if he ever had doubts, says: "No hesitations. No. No. No. We believe you can say whatever you like in discussions, but when ordered, you must follow it.

COMMENTS ON MOSSAD ATTITUDES - Part 2

Another agent, identified only as "Yonatan", told the Israeli daily Ma'ariv: "We identified completely with our mission after what the terrorists did to our athletes in Munich. I never asked myself, like Avner in the movie, if I was doing the right thing."

Atlantic Productions lists various alleged discrepancies between Spielberg's film and what those involved claim is the reality:

- Spielberg's film suggests one group carried out almost all the assassinations, but in fact much larger teams of agents were involved;

- there is no evidence Mossad worked with the help of a mysterious French criminal "godfather" figure as portrayed in both Vengeance and the film;

- those on the list of assassination targets were not all directly involved in Munich. This is confirmed by Mossad agents, and Spielberg acknowledges this, but only in the last five minutes.

The retired Mossad deputy head Kimche says the mission was not just about revenge but striking fear into the hearts of terrorists..."We tried not to do things just by shooting a guy in the streets, that's easy - fairly. By putting a bomb in his phone, this was a message that they can be got anywhere, at any time and therefore they have to look out for themselves 24 hours a day."

"Yonatan" was asked by an Israeli interviewer if he accepted Spielberg's message that violence was not the right response. "Maybe," he answered. "But what could we have done after Munich? If we had given in, the Palestinians would have thought they were stronger and carried out even worse attacks."

Plantagenet
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/

Interesting that people still think of the Palestinians as the indiginous people of Israel (Palestine). This is despite the fact that they all came much later than the Jewish peoples. If our aboriginal people had all been kicked out of Australia, would that make the Brittish occupiers the indiginous peoples of australia? What would be the response if the aboriginals were brought back after one and a half thousand years? Would the one and a half thousand years of immigrants too australia having occupied the land, lead to those immigrants being the indiginous peoples?

I think what these questions show is that both have a right to claim palestine, the two state situation is the most acceptable. If, however, the palestinians continue to use attacks targeted against civilians then perhaps that is reason to kick them out of the whole area? And I wish people would get their heads around the difference between purposefully targetting civilians, compared with knowing there are civilians in the area that could be hurt when targetting known terrorists (by terorists I mean those who target civilians). For those who cannot think for themselves (clearly the vast majority) the difference is who you are targetting, civilians or criminals, not who you hit.

Was romeo at fault in killing mercutio, or was this an unexpected tradgedy?

I agree wholeheartedly with Colin. He does not condemn the film because it goes against the Palestinian cause; he critisises it because it goes against truth and justice. Yes, I know it's a film, but there are still many people who are taken in by this type of propaganda. Spielberg, at best, is disingenuous at claiming to show both sides. How about telling the whole story...heck, what about making a movie about what happened in 1948 to the indigenous people of that land? He is obviously not putting his humanity, or his craft, before his religion.

The old strategy of the good old Israelis planting trees in the desert and the swarthy, bad Arabs has been debunked. The Zionist propaganda machine is now circling the wagon to think up new strategies. The latest ploy is "there are two sides" to this- as if they are somehow equal sides. The indigenous people of Palestine suffered massacres, a diaspora and are still suffering a decades long occupation. They are the victims...and have been fighting to become survivors. Victims and aggressors are not equal "sides".Fortunately for all the people concerned, it looks like the political way is the next fight to survive.

Fide mae,
It may be interesting to you to say people view Palestinians as indigenous to Palestine...but truth is truely interesting.

In 1917 Balfour said "for in Palestine we do not even propose to go through the form of consulting with the inhabitants of the country". In 1948, about 750,000 Palestinians were expelled, and Weizman called it "a miraculous clearing of the land; the miraculous simplification of Israel's ask". Theodor Herzi wrote in 1895, " we shall try to spirit the penniless population accross the border" In Mashala, 1992, p.194, Ben-Gurion referred to "The committe for removal and expulsion". Weitz, the head of this committe, wrote in 1940 " it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples to live in this country...not one village, not one tribe must remain."

You have been duped if you do not view Palestinians as indigenous people of that land. Furthermore, they are a Semitic people, unlike Jewish people....who are Slav and Anglo...amongst other ethnicities. The people who came to Israel from Europe and North America...are just that...indigenous to Europe and North America.