‘Munich: The Edge of War’ has frightening parallels to present day

Posted on January 28, 2022

By MARK VIOLA

It’s not exactly rare to sit down and watch a movie set in the past only to discover an unexpected correlation to present day. As they say, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Looking for a film to watch last weekend, I settled on the new Netflix movie, “Munich: The Edge of War,” based on the novel by Robert Harris and set in Europe in the months before the outbreak of World War II.

Much of the film is a fictionalized account of the actual events surrounding the Munich conference of 1938. Both in real life and in the movie, the nations of Europe were facing a power-hungry national leader with a rabid local following attempting to annex land from neighboring countries he claims belongs to them and is willing to pursue those conquests using both political and military might.

Anyone who has turned on the nightly news recently can figure out why I started thinking about current events instead of World War II.

As for the movie, solid direction from German director Christian Schwochow (“Bad Banks”), as well as strong performances from the two leads (George MacKay, “1917,” and Jannis Niewöhner, “Kids Run”) turn what could have been a paint-by-numbers political thriller (for which we all know the eventual outcome) into a nail-biting thriller where the stakes, both political and personal, feel palpable and immediate.

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