One Day in September [Import]

One of the most compelling aspects of this film pertains to how Germany failed repeatedly to effectively protect the athletes and to successfully rescue the hostages. Participating in the 1972 Olympic Games was a momentous symbolic measure for Israel as German-Jewish relations remained sore nearly three decades after the collapse of Nazi Germany. Security surrounding the Olympic Village was intentionally relaxed and the guards did not carry guns. This apparent loophole enabled the terrorists to infiltrate the Israeli housing complex and carry out their treats to the vicious end.

Watching this documentary is very timely considering present-day political situations in the Middle East and the upcoming summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. It is my dear hope that the Greeks will learn from the mistakes of the Germans and protect all the athletes and spectators from harm. The camaraderie and spirit of the Olympics should not be overshadowed by acts of terrorism. It's sobering to realize that 30 years later the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains in the headlines and claims countless of lives. Highly recommended.

"One Day in September" is a documentary film dealing with the terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympic Games held in Munich, Germany. On September 5, 1972, eight Palestinian terrorists stormed the Olympic Village and killed two Israelis athletes and took another nine Israelis hostage. This began the standoff between the German police and the terrorists.

The documentary starts by letting us know who some of the victims are (though, I suppose if you had no idea what this was about you wouldn't know they were the future victims). The film focuses on one particular Israeli and his wife speaks about him and what kind of man he was. We also get the perspective of Jamal al-Gashey, one of the terrorists. He speaks on camera (though obscured by lack of light) about the planning for the incident. The documentary then tells us about the hopes for the Munich games, the first Olympic games since the 1932 Berlin games when Hitler was the host. The hope was that the games could be a reconciliation after World War II. But then the attack occurred and the standoff began.

From the start, nothing went right. "One Day in September" shows the ineptitude of the German police throughout the event. One example is that the police put together a task force to rescue the hostages at the Olympic village. Sounds great, but they were doing it in daylight and there were television crews covering the standoff and they barely realized in time that every room in the Olympic village had a television and the terrorists were likely watching every move the police made. It got worse from there. It wasn't until the final rescue attempt at the airport that the ineptitude reached a critical level. I couldn't believe how many things were not taken into consideration, such as the sniper team had no communication with the police so they did not know how many terrorists there were, and two of the snipers didn't have helmets or bulletproof vests so they were pinned down and couldn't take a shot.

I have two main thoughts running through my head about this film. The subject of the film is fascinating. This is something that I want to know about and it is a huge moment in Olympic history (and gets alluded to in the two Steve Prefontaine movies). The other thought is that while the subject was incredibly interesting and the movie won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Documentary, I don't feel that it was as well made as it could have been. The documentary was somewhat boring, very slow moving (a documentary can move at a swift pace even for an event covering a short period of time), and was not very engaging. It is a movie that I wanted to like, but I think it was only average. It lingered too long at times and did not move on in telling the story fast enough.

The film is as visually stimulating as it is informative. The standoff and negotiations between the Palestinians and Germans were captured in their entirety on film, as was the ensuing journey to the airport; interspersed with the live footage were current news reports, including portions of the ABC sports broadcast and commentary about the scene at hand. Anything not captured live on film was photographed, and the film's music was artfully chosen to convey the events' drama and anguish. Amazingly, the sole surviving Palestinian terrorist was interviewed incognito for the film, who said about the initial hostage capture, "I felt very proud that for the first time I was able to confront the Israelis." The shots of the slain athletes (both at the compound and the airport) are a brutal reminder of what the Palestinian idea of "confronting" innocents entails.

One Day in September also shows that the Germans hadn't traveled very far from Nazism by 1972, except that their military ineptitude had grown in leaps and bounds. Not only did the German police and Olympic authorities handle the crisis as effectively as a cross between Gilligan, Mr. Magoo, and Inspector Clousseau, but they were more concerned with continuing the games than they were with saving the lives of the hostages. Furthermore, they held the Mossad at bay and prevented it from getting the job done; the Israeli squad, like so many others, was unfortunately initially fooled by what one called "The Myth of Utter German Ruthless Efficiency."

German cluelessness and cowardice abounded: the police tried to raid the compound from the roof, only to learn just in time that the terrorists could watch their every move on live TV coverage; agents got cold feet and bailed at the last second before descending on the terrorists; at the airport, they didn't even use real snipers, and had their men positioned in one another's lines of fire; one of the Germans accidentally shot a hostage. In the interviews given by the Germans for the documentary (especially that of General Wegener), the tone can best be described as a shrug of the shoulders and a, "Hey, what can you do?" The greatest insult of is that the Germans allowed the three surviving terrorists to escape during their transport, as cowardly means of insurance against future acts of terrorism. The terrorists received a hero's welcome in Libya.

An amazingly sad story, captured as vividly as can be- One Day in September is the essence of what documentaries of historical events should be. The only happy ending is that the Mossad later killed two out of the three terrorists- it's just too bad the remaining one couldn't have been shot in the face as soon as his interview for the project finished.