In 1972, athletes from around the globe gathered in Munich, Germany for the Olympic Games. However, the Olympic spirit of brotherhood and peaceful competition was shattered when eight Palestinian terrorists invaded the athletes' quarters to take the Israeli team hostage, resulting in the violent deaths of eleven athletes. In One Day in September, director Kevin Macdonald mixes newsreel coverage of the tragedy with interviews of witnesses and participants (including Jamil Al Gashey, the only
surviving member of the terrorist cadre Black September who were responsible for the killings), as they discuss what happened, and how a dangerous situation turned tragic and deadly . Produced by two-time Oscar winner Arthur Cohn,One Day in September earned Cohn another trophy when it received an Academy Award as Best Documentary Feature. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Macdonald and his team, which included a Palestinian journalist, really did their homework for this taut documentary, and their research turns up plenty of blame to go around.
Macdonald seems to continue the pattern of hiding the soil and fertilizing process of political crime beneath the more obvious sights and symptoms of that crime's most putrid expressions.
"We are sorry for you. You made good Olympic Games. But you offered us a showcase and we have to use this showcase in order to show our possibility to so many millions... or even billions of people in the world who are watching your Olympic Games."This was one hell of an act of terrorism being broadcast live worldwide.
The events leading to the massacre were outrageous, and the steps taken by the Germans to fight the terrorists were incredibly gullible. The ease with which they've got over it is laudable. The rescue operation designed worked so well that it led to the death of one and all of the hostages. Of course, they succeeded in shooting dead five terrorists and capturing the rest of the lot. And as if the negligent rescue operation wasn't enough, when the hijackers of a jet plane demanded release of the terrorists under trial, they readily handed them away. What surprises me the most is that the surviving terrorists received a grand welcome and those shot dead received the funeral for the martyrs in Libya. I mean, they didn't even try to hide any of this. Ain't it ridiculous? Had no idea whatsoever of this "One Day In September" till now. Maybe I'm far more ignorant than I'd assumed.
One day in September is gripping, intense and astonishing. I thought I knew all there was to know about the '72 Munich Olympics disaster but I hadn't realised just how chaotic and dumbfounding it really was. This documentary tells you everything you need to know, with a thorough collection of TV clips, photos and
interviews with people who were there, including an exclusive with the last surviving terrorist. See this if you enjoyed Bus 174, it works as a great companion piece to the also very excellent Munich. Documentaries don't get much better.
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