Director – Tim Fehlbaum – 2024 – US, Germany – Cert. 15 – 95m
****1/2
A dramatisation of the events of September 5, 1972 when broadcast TV sports journalists found themselves covering the terrorist kidnapping of Israeli athletes in the Olympic village – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, February 6th
There have been movies about the terrorist incident at the 1972 Olympics before: the documentary One Day in September (Kevin McDonald, 1999) and the drama about its aftermath Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005). Like the latter, September 5 is a drama. What marks it out as different, however, is that it tells the story from the point of view of broadcast journalists working out of a studio.
In this respect, its feeling for capturing the processes of live US network television renders it not entirely dissimilar to recent release Saturday Night (Jason Reitman, 2024), yet in many ways, it couldn’t be more different. Saturday Night is about the birth of a legendary US comedy show; September 5 starts in an arguably similar area of entertainment (live sports coverage) before swiftly moving into the wider, more problematic area of live broadcast news coverage. The coverage of the incident around which September 5 is based forever changed the face of broadcast television media.
One might say the same about Saturday Night, yet the birth of an iconic comedy show pales beside what was to become the world’s first televised terrorist incident. With Saturday Night Live, the programme makers hoped to change the face of TV comedy; the ABC Sports team at the 1972 Munich Olympics, had no idea that they were to become the first broadcast journalists to report terrorism live.
Moreover, in our present age where people can press ‘record’ on a handheld device and send pictures around the world in seconds via the internet, the issues it raises are deeply prescient. Indeed, September 5 would make for a fascinating double bill with that thought-provoking documentary about broadcast and social media, Fantastic Machine (Axel Danielson, Maximilien Van Aertryck, 2023).
The main protagonist is Geoff Mason (John Magaro from Past Lives, Celine Song, 2023; The Big Short, Adam McKay, 2015; Captain Phillips, Paul Greengrass, 2013; The Brave One, Neil Jordan, 2007), a producer on his first day on the job at ABC Sports working in that network subdivision’s purpose-built studio by the site of the 1972 Munich Olympics. Geoff is understandably eager to impress both his mentor Martin Bader (Ben Chaplin from The Dig, Simon Stone, 2021; The Children Act, Richard Eyre, 2017; The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick, 1998; The Remains of the Day, James Ivory, 1993) and his boss Rooine Arledge (Peter Sarskaard from The Batman, Matt Reeves, 2022) at the network.
Geoff is some way though his first shift, which starts late at night and is set to proceed through the next full day of sporting events when, in the wee small hours, he and some colleagues, of whom only Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch from The Teachers’ Lounge, Ilker Çatak, 2023; The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke, 2009) speaks German as well as English, an invaluable asset in translating, for example, live German broadcast news coverage or conversations on the local police radio frequency.
As part of the genesis of the project, director Fehlbaum and his two co-screenwriters began researching the incident. Among those they contacted was Geoffrey Mason, 32 at the time of the Munich Olympics, who provides the basis for the film;’s central protagonist. According to the highly informative press handouts, they were impressed by his saying there was no time to think about any issues involved, it was more of a high-pressure environment in which the job was, get the coverage out there. That was the element that convinced them they had a movie.
The great thing about a movie is you can watch it (and watch it again) in cinemas, and, these days, go back and rewatch it on home cinema platforms. So in a movie like this, where there’s a great deal of food for thought, you can dissect it afterwards at great length. However, for the 72 hours when Geoff and his team were in the thick of this situation, such analysis was an unaffordable luxury. They were up against a limited amount of time as events rapidly unfolded before their cameras, and they had to make the best use of it they could in the limited window they had.
That’s what gives the proceedings here their narrative edge. The clock is constantly ticking, and the taut edge to events portrayed turns the piece into a gripping thriller. Like the journalist protagonists, you’re constantly on the edge of your seat trying to work out not only what exactly is going on, but also, how our protagonists can cover it and get the pictures out to the world.
Technically, it’s a remarkable achievement. It’s set in the 1970s and looks and feels for all the world like a 1970s conspiracy thriller (think: All the President’s Men, Alan J. Pakula, 1976). Yet it isn’t – it’s a film very skilfully made with 2024 technology, brilliantly shot by cinematographer Markus Förderer (I Origins, Mike Cahill, 2014). And yet, part of its subject matter is the ever evolving capabilities of broadcast media technology. Were you so minded, you could switch off the film’s foreground subject matter (this would be hard to do, I grant you, as it’s a highly intense experience – but humour me here) and simply feast your eyes and ears on the equipment on display in the film (a Steenbeck film editing table, to name but one). If the film were simply trying to succeed as period film production equipment porn, it succeeds in spades.
And then there’s the fact, which I only realised when reading the press notes after viewing and which is nevertheless a jaw-dropping achievement, that when you are watching ABC anchor Jim McKay who I had assumed was played by an actor, broadcasting over the air waves, you are actually watching archive footage of ABC anchor Jim McKay broadcasting over the air waves. This is true of other images and sounds captured by the cameras – much (if not all) of it is taken from the original ABC footage. Those old enough to remember the incident (I personally was a young teenager at the time) will recognise images such as the terrorist wearing a balaclava who suddenly appears, in b&w footage, on a balcony, his image broadcast in real time to the world. The more I ponder what has been achieved here, the more I think the film deserves to win an Oscar for technical achievement – Incorporation of Archive Footage into a Dramatic Motion Picture, perhaps?
Even as the film raises the issues it raises and pushes the technical boundaries it pushes, there’s a lot of other stuff going on too. Benesh particularly impresses as the sole bilingual character. But you’ll also thrill to the subplot about a cameraman smuggling unprocessed reels of 16mm through the police cordon to get it to the lab for broadcast, or the portrait of Munich police out of their depth in an unprecedented hostage situation screwing everything up. But, primarily, what holds your attention is the seat of their pants view of a sports TV crew out of their depth trying to broadcast to the world what, we can see with hindsight, is the world’s first live broadcast of a terrorist incident. A fascinating picture of both history and media history in the making – and, as such, essential viewing. It may not be 100% perfect (but then, what is?), but it’s a film that demands your attention. Better yet, it achieves all this in a mere, lean, 95 minutes. A must-see.
The cast also includes: Georgina Rich, Corey Johnson, Marcus Rutherford (County Lines), Daniel Adeosun (The Book of Clarence), Benjamin Walker (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; Flags of our Fathers), Ferdinand Dörfler,
September 5 is out in cinemas in the UK on Thursday, February 6th.
Trailer: