September 5 Review

Tim Fehlbaum’s sweat-inducing September 5 re-creates events through the eyes of the team of journalists who unexpectedly found themselves covering the crisis…

For anybody who saw it in 1972, it was one of the most indelible and terrifying images of the decade, if not the century. A solitary figure stands on an apartment balcony and looks over the edge. Their entire face and head are covered by a mask with eyeholes that create a deathly appearance.

It was a terrorist, one of a group who took 11 Israelis hostage at the Munich Olympics, barricading them at gunpoint inside a room in the athletes’ village. The photograph went international, on TV and on millions of front pages, at a time when the majority of people watched television in black and white and newspapers ruled the news agenda. But 21 perilous hours changed broadcast news forever and Tim Fehlbaum’s sweat-inducing September 5 re-creates them through the eyes of the team of journalists who unexpectedly found themselves covering the crisis in the rolling news format we all now regard as the norm.

They’re the sports crew from ABC, expecting to cover swimming and gymnastics, but instead, the early hours of the morning and ensuing day sees them separating truth from rumour, grappling with ethical dilemmas about what they can and can’t show on the screen and getting their footage on TVs around the world while the possibility of carnage is always in the back of their mind. Under the cast-iron leadership of Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), a decision-making machine if ever there was one, they’re also under pressure to hand over the story to the news team. He’s having none of it and, with up-coming producer Geoff Mason (John Magaro) and resourceful local interpreter Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) front and centre, the team set about telling the story in the most professional and comionate way they know how.

JOHN MAGARO AND LEONIE BENESCH – HERE!!!

Fehlbaum’s docudrama is a ticking time bomb, playing out as a nail-biter with stakes that couldn’t be much higher. Time drives everything so the newsroom setting, with its skin-of-the-teeth deadlines, is tailor-made for tension, and the outcome – one that we already know – hits like a sledgehammer. It’s all underlined by the relentless narrative, great ensemble and individual performances (Magaro and Benesch in particular), and total involvement with what’s happening on the screens big and small. With its documentary level of detail – the control room is a tech museum, with its push-button telephones, fax machines, and small screens – the film is also an intelligent thriller which is both thought provoking and, because of its vice-like grip on the audience, unexpectedly emotional.

Despite its historical and current political context, the film isn’t weighed down by either, concentrating simply on the events and the people and every single second counts in a lean 95 minutes. September 5 has set the standard for this year’s thrillers and it’ll take a lot of beating, but it’s hampered by a release date that does it no favours. With award contenders dominating the box office, it could all too easily be pushed into a corner, despite a well-deserved Oscar nod for its taut screenplay. Yet there isn’t another film out there which comes close to being this riveting. It’ll turn your mouth dry.