By Ben Bright
@BrightFilmWorks
At 4:10 am, September 5th, 1972, during the second week of the Summer Olympics, after a night out seeing a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, eight members of the radical Palestinian terrorist organization, The Black September(a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization), broke into the Israeli apartment at the Olympic Village armed with pistols, assault rifles, and a hand grenade. They proceeded to murder an Israeli weightlifter and take five coaches and five athletes hostage, demanding the release of 328 detainees held in Israeli prisons and two members of the Red Army Faction being held in Germany to be set free with the provision that they also are flown out of Germany to the Middle East.
During negotiations, an initial rescue attempt was called off because the event was broadcast live worldwide to over 900 million people.
Around 10:00 PM an agreement was made and the terrorists proceeded to lead the blindfolded hostages to buses which transported them to helicopters that took them to nearby Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base.
Upon their arrival at the airbase, the untrained and ill-equipped German police attempted an ambush and failed resulting in the murder of all of the hostages and one West German police officer. Of the aggressors, five members of the Black September were killed. The total number of deaths throughout the situation and the massacre added up to 17.
Unfortunately, before the above massacre, at midnight a German official prematurely released a statement announcing that all of the hostages had been rescued and the terrorists killed. It was right after midnight when the massacre occurred.
The lack of training, equipment, proper firearms, and poor strategic planning of the ambush combined with the incompetent decision of the German government forbidding the army to assist the police under its current post-war constitution and the absolute irresponsibility of the German officials to make the statement that the hostages had been saved were a multitude of failures resulting in a massive disaster.
What was to be an exuberant day of celebration of countries coming together for friendly competition with each other through sportsmanship quickly devolved into what the current International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, refers to as “the darkest day in Olympics history.”.
The Film’s primary focus is from the perspective of ABC Sports covering the Olympics.
One night while wrapping up coverage and leaving their offices the producers Roone Aldrage(Peter Sargaard. The Batman, Blue Jasmine), Marvin Bader(Ben Chaplin. The Thin Red Line, Murder by Numbers), and Geoffrey Mason(John Magaro. The Big Short, The Many Saints of Newark), broadcast engineer Jacques Lesgards(Zinedine Soualem. Welcome to the Sticks, The Spanish Apartment), and German interpreter Marianne(Leonie Benesch. Babylon Berlin, The White Ribbon) hear what sounds like gunshots coming from the Olympic Village. Upon further investigation, they are informed that the Israeli apartment at the Olympic Village has been invaded and the athletes and coaches inside have been taken hostage.
They decide to cover the situation on the air reporting back to ABC Sports Journalist Jim Mckay in the United States as the events unfold.
On top of the situation itself, studio politics begin to come into play and the battle for ABC’s exclusivity of the coverage comes into play as CBS and NBC, knives out, approach ABC demanding coverage.
The final act seals the film as a full-blown, newsroom thriller with a tragic ending that raises the topic of morality and ethics in the quest for ratings in the face of tragedy.
The film’s setting is small, at only a little over 90 minutes, but the scope is massive. Thanks to direction by Tim Fehlbaum(The Colony, Hell), We, as the viewers, feel like we are in the room with the staff in real time. The narrative never physically leaves the ABC offices, and approximately 65% of the film takes place inside the control room of the offices.
The entire ensemble cast delivers great performances but one that stands out specifically(in this writer’s opinion) is Benesch’s portrayal as Marianne, who goes from a secondary character as an interpreter to being pushed up front to being a strong field correspondent critical to the reporting of the events as they begin to escalate. Another stand-out performance is Soualem’s portrayal of Jacques Lesgards the audio engineer assisting the the team with coverage. Rounding out the performances are Peter Sarsgaard and Ben Chaplin as Roone Alderage and Marvin Bader the two producers trying to keep the team together while also under pressure from their corporate higher-ups back in the United States.
A big takeaway, as addressed above, is what were the networks truly in search of? Ratings are an issue frequently raised, and in the end, the audience is asked, ” But at what cost?”
September 5 is a truly satisfying film experience. It is well-paced, you care about the characters, has great performances, and is well-written with a well-thought-out narrative that never lacks intensity. It is a movie that should be seen in the theatre and it would not be a surprise if it got several Oscar nods. Definitely one of the best films of the year.
