In today's feuilletons - Steven Spielberg - Munich

Out now: The new movie of Steven Spielberg.

Although Spielberg's "Munich" includes documentary footage, Verena Lueken of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung questions whether the film accurately portrays history, especially in dealing with Israeli secret service reprisals in the wake of the kidnapping. "Political thrillers like this don't have to correspond exactly to historical truth. But they should at least be believable. And who can believe that for such an important mission, the Mossad would choose an inexperienced father who – as we later see – trembles and has considerable pangs of conscience when it comes to killing for the first time?" Lueken feels Spielberg's image of Europe also lacks originality: "For Spielberg, travelling across Europe means bicycles in Holland, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the London rain."

The entire first page of the feuilleton section in the Süddeutsche Zeitung deals with "Munich". Tobias Kniebe calls the film "a provocative and enervating contradiction," but he does concede: "The relationship between reality and cinema is and remains precarious. And this must be continually brought to people's attention. Otherwise the power of the images to thrust themselves in front of the truth becomes too great." He goes on: "Regardless of all that can be said against it, 'Munich' is certainly more exciting, more thought-provoking and more worthy of being talked about than most films that will come out of Hollywood this year." Susan Vahabzadeh, for her part, lists the facts that contradict Spielberg's – and his critics' – portrayal of the events during and after the 1972 Olympic Games.