Munich. The Edge of War.

[peter]

This Netflix thriller based on the book Munich by Robert Harris is a tight little film that provides a solid couple of hours viewing, even if it doesn't spring any major surprises or leave much behind itself after the viewing is finished.

Directed by Christian Schwochow and starring George McKay the story weaves a fictional series of events into the historical framework of the 1938 Munich talks which terminated in the signing of the notorious agreement that is held up as symbolic of the worst aspects of 'appeasement' to this very day.

Taking the tack that the agreement, rather than being a failure on Chamberlain's part, was actually a highly successful piece of diplomatic statecraft that postponed the war (which the man knew perfectly well was inevitable) and bought the UK time during which it could prepare itself better, the film does it's job in a serviceable manner. McKay demonstrates the same blend of youthful innocence and tortured understanding that we saw in the more epic 1917, and plays the role of an individual being swept up by the events of history and carried along with little power to control his own fate with aplomb. There is a rather pointless sub-narrative pertaining to his troubles on the domestic front, but besides this the backstory to the events of the meetings themselves are pretty pertinent to the way the story unfolds.

Jeremy Irons plays Neville Chamberlain with ease, and the role does not really stretch him or require much more than his usual jobbing talents, but the role of Hitler, taken by Ulrich Matthes is a different animal. Always a hard ask to render this monster without slipping into caricature, Matthes does indeed manage to capture some of the man's chilling idiosyncratic manner, even if we never get to see his more human side (which must, surely, have existed in there somewhere).

Was the Munich agreement a symbol of appeasement at its worst, a reflection of a British establishment that was essentially in tune with the program of Hitler's Germany, even as the people at large (and the Labour Party, in stark contrast to the Tories it should be remembered) had a polar opposite position - or was it a demonstration of a cunning piece of diplomacy that in the end made it possible for the supreme might of the Third Reich to be defeated?

Either way, I think you'll enjoy the film.

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I like a lot of his books...

--A