A gripping retelling of a horrific moment in sporting history
The events of the massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich are well known. Eleven athletes and coaches of the Israeli Olympic team were attacked in their apartments at the Olympic Village by a Palestinian terrorist group calling themselves ‘Black September’. Two of the hostages were shot and killed immediately. The remaining nine were murdered at a nearby airfield during a bungled rescue attempt launched by the West German police. The shocking images of balaclava-clad terrorists holding the terrified Israeli athletes at gunpoint were beamed out live to hundreds of millions of viewers around the world. September 5 portrays these events from the perspective of staff at the American TV network ABC Sports.
In Munich to cover the sporting side of the Olympics, the television crew unexpectedly find themselves reporting live on a violent terrorist attack instead. The film follows ABC Sports President Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), Head of the Control Room Geoff Mason (John Magaro), Head of Operation Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) and German translator Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch). Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum adopts a realistic documentary style, intermingling grainy hand-held camera shots of the sweaty, smoke-filled control room with actual news footage from the time.
We follow the events as they play out almost in real-time, enhancing the atmosphere of tension and uncertainty. The film is less about the characters themselves than it is about the split-second decisions they must make when faced with events of such historic magnitude. What to report? What not to report? What to show? What not to show? As the gravity of the situation becomes clear, Mason asks Arledge whether they’re allowed to broadcast someone being shot on live television. Arledge can’t answer. The morality of broadcasting an ongoing hostage situation is also called into question. The crew realises their footage of armed German police approaching the apartment where the terrorists and hostages are holed up is being watched live by the terrorists themselves. The police are forced to withdraw and the crew start questioning what role they’re playing. “Whose story is this?” asks Bader. “Is it ours? Or is it theirs?”
The film is at its strongest when it’s focusing on the drama of the attack, the literally second-to-second logistical challenges of reporting on it live, and the journalistic ethics at play. It’s at its weakest when it attempts to force broader political conversations into the narrative. Characters occasionally engage in heavy-handed discussions about the political motivations for the attack, and the symbolism of Israelis – Jews – being murdered in cold blood on post-war German soil. In a film otherwise utterly devoted to realism, these less plausible moments stand out like a sore thumb.
Nonetheless, September 5 is a gripping watch. The sound design in particular is superb. Whenever the crew steps outside the claustrophobic control room, they hear the crackle of gunfire and deafening roar of helicopters flying overhead. We get the profound sense of people watching history unfolding right in front of their eyes.
Nowadays, social media and smartphones allow every significant event to be beamed instantaneously around the world without the need for any journalistic intervention. September 5 is a heart-pounding depiction of a very different time.
By Barney Pell Scholes
Images courtesy Paramount UK
September 5 is out now. september5movie.com