Book
Film
TV
Podcast
Games
Other
MUNICH – THE EDGE OF WAR
A classy and gripping period thriller with a fatalistic flavour
Certificate: 12A Director: Christian Schwochow Cast: Jeremy Irons, George MacKay, Jannis Niewöhner Released: Out now
Christian Schwochow’s Munich – The Edge of War is based on the 2017 novel by Robert Harris; the subtitle has been added to the movie adaptation presumably so the audience doesn’t confuse it with the 2005 Steven Spielberg blockbuster about the 1972 murders of the Israeli Olympic squad by terror cell Black September. Harris, a former award-winning journalist, has made a name for himself as a popular writer of historical fiction. He has long held an interest in World War II and British PM Neville Chamberlain, and fronted a 1988 BBC documentary examining the 50th anniversary of the Munich Agreement.
Any story, especially the recreation of a real-life event where the outcome is well known in advance, boasts an inherently fatalistic flavour. We know the Munich Agreement – infamously described as “peace for our time” by Chamberlain – proved worthless. Within a year, grips not because we know it will end in calamity, but because of its clever plotting and interpersonal dramas between characters. The main focus of these dramas are a civil servant acting as a translator on the British delegation and his counterpart on the German side, who has found out all about Hitler’s plans for Europe and is trying to sound the alarm. But will anyone listen?
