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One Day in September
***1/2
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Cornerhouse (Manchester)
Released in the UK by Redbus on June 9, 2000; certificate 15; 95 minutes;
country of origin UK; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Kevin Macdonald; produced by
John Battsek, Arthur Cohn.
Edited by Justine Wright.
A documentary narrated by Michael Douglas;
with interviews of Ankie Spitzer, Jamal Al Gashey, Gerald
Seymour, Alex Springer, Gad Zabari, Shmuel Lalkin,
Manfred Schreiber, Walther Troger, Ulrich K. Wegener,
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Schlomit Romajo, Magdi Gahary,
Zvi Zamir, Dan Shillon, Heinz Hohensinn, Esther
Roth, Hans Jochen Vogel, Anouk Spitzer.
It is one of the woeful ironies of the 1972 Munich
Olympics that they were supposed to be the Olympics of Serenity. And it was
the biggest chance for Germany, after the Second World War, to prove itself
a safe, reformed nation to the world. Satellite television would broadcast
the games internationally for the first time in history -- very exciting,
it seemed. Except it was a perfect publicity opportunity for Palestinian
terrorists, who on September 5 invaded the Olympic Village, took 19 Israeli
athletes hostage, and declared that they would be executed within 24 hours
unless 330 Palestine criminals were released from foreign
jails.
Because our memory of these events is hazy,
"One Day in September", a powerful film that won the Best
Documentary Oscar in March, generates an incredible amount of tension. I
was not even alive in 1972, and have only heard the story second hand. This
movie took me through it in a detailed, linear manner. We learn that the
Olympic Village had informal security, because the Germans did not want any
imagery that reminded people of the Nazis. A police attempt to get inside
the athletes' rooms, and take direct control of the situation, had to be
aborted because the terrorists were seeing the preparations via live television.
A ploy to trick them out into the open resulted in a tragic, violent
mess.
These are just three examples of how the German
authorities dealt with the situation in a messy, pedestrian manner. The film
has many more, so it's embarrassing, and ultimately heartbreaking, to watch.
What it shows clearly is how terrorists love involving ordinary people in
their madness, because they know there's no way we can possibly deal with
them. None of the Palestinians who held up the Olympic games could have had
any delusions that their prisoners would be released; they simply wished
to indulge in some sadism, look important and impress the moronic fanatics
who crowd the streets of their homeland making mindless buzzing sounds. Their
defence is that they "put their struggle on the map", but terrorists do not
help struggles, they damage their own causes and feed bitter atmospheres
of violence.
"For the first time in my life, I didn't just
feel like a refugee, but a revolutionary fighting for a cause," says Jamal
Al Gashey, one of the men involved. Although not his intention, he has made
a statement that perfectly summarises the futility of terrorism: it is just
meaningless rage to elevate the egos of the wretched and empty-minded. "One
Day in September" is beautifully put together -- in its intense cutting,
hypnotic music and elegiac sound bites, it's like an Errol Morris movie on
an adrenaline rush. All its many little facts and images, though, revolve
around the one sad, frustrating truth that there are enough idiotic extremists
worldwide to strike anyone, anywhere, at any time, with the support of millions
of their countrymen. Why?
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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