Peter Sarsgaard in Munich Olympics horror drama

In an era of instant coverage of world events on social media and news sites, watching a film like this is an enlightening and gripping experience September 5tells the story of how ABC Sports’ dedicated staff successfully broadcast the terrorist attacks on the 1972 Munich Olympics live to the nation.

German director Tim Fellbaum’s third feature not only details all the logistical hurdles the team needed to overcome so that they could capture the crisis relying on large television cameras, smuggled 16mm film, lots of walkie-talkies and a whole lot of ingenuity What happened. More importantly, the film tackles the difficult issues faced by several hard-working journalists and one important female translator when dealing with situations where many lives hang in the balance.

These enduring questions, along with intense, vivid performances from a stellar cast, help make September 5 More than just a time capsule of how news was processed in the pre-digital era; it’s also a narrative relevant to our own time.

Perfectly blending reams of archival footage from September 5, 1972 – a day of infamy for anyone alive at the time – with the behind-the-scenes creations of the ABC crew who worked overtime and then some Man Got It films are all airing now, focusing on the key characters who strive to achieve this goal.

Among them are Roone Arledge (played by Peter Sarsgaard), the ABC executive responsible for broadcasting the 1972 Munich Olympics; Marvin (played by Ben Chaplin), the smart and irritable operations director of the team; Marianne (Leonie Benesch), the local German Translation; Jeff (John Magaro) is a young producer who sets out to cover an ordinary day at a boxing and volleyball tournament, but ends up discovering something more important.

Things started out normally, with a sleepy TV crew taking the shift one day after Mark Spitz won swimming gold, but then gunfire rang out from the Olympic Village, just blocks away . Jeff remained in charge while the top brass took a leave of absence, and he soon found himself doing everything he could to figure out what was going on and report it live to viewers in the United States.

With the help of Marianne (who goes from being a neglected behind-the-scenes translator to a leading on-the-ground reporter), Jeff and his team soon realize that a pivotal and potentially world-changing event is taking place: a black Palestinian terrorists organized by the September Organization killed two Israeli athletes and took nearly a dozen people hostage, demanding the release of hundreds of prisoners in return.

Of course, this all took place in Germany, at a time when the country was beginning to publicly acknowledge the horrors inflicted on the Jews during World War II. This history is not easily forgotten by Jeff and others, especially Marvin, who is the son of a Holocaust victim and harbors a great deal of resentment against the Germans he came into contact with.

Felbaum, who co-wrote the script with Moritzbinder, provides some early exposition of Marvin and the other characters in the film’s opening scenes, which begin with a reveal depicting the behind-the-scenes work of the ABC Sports team. after that, September 5 It quickly turns into a detailed report from Munich, and it’s quite fascinating.

Of the many obstacles Jeff faced, one of the main ones was obtaining footage of the building where the hostages were being held. Acting quickly and taking big risks, he had his team roll a giant newsroom camera up a hill outside his office, while a smaller 16mm camera shot with star reporter Peter Jennings ( Benjamin Walker) were smuggled into a building opposite.

But that raises another question: How do you get a 16mm lens out of a police-blocked area? Jeff once again came up with a crazy idea, dressing up a crew member (Daniel Adeoson) as a Team USA athlete and having him sneak around with several film cans attached to his body. The exposed films were then developed in an on-site laboratory, including one showing the infamous black-and-white footage of a masked Black September member prowling a balcony.

September 5 No technical details are overlooked—we also learn that Jennings reported the incident via phone, with the receiving end mounted on a studio microphone—but Feilbaum often takes a step back to help the audience see the bigger picture.

What would happen if Black September ended up executing an athlete? Should the team broadcast it live on television and possibly broadcast it to the parents of American-born weightlifter David Berger, who competes under the Israeli flag? (The larger Israeli-Palestinian issue is never raised in the film, however, which remains focused on the events of the time.)

Unsure of how to handle things, Jeff is caught between Marvin, who becomes a moral beacon for the crew, and Rooney, who is constantly in conflict with his own network and other networks, including CBS, who sharing the only available satellite link) fight to maintain exclusivity over the network. The fact that this was all handled by journalists more familiar with sports than terrorism adds another layer of intrigue, though September 5 Showing it’s because of the team’s experience with live events that they’ve been able to achieve such success.

Even if you know the tragic ending of the Munich attack, the film is suspenseful throughout, focusing on characters caught between the desire to get the job done and the awareness of what exactly is at stake. Magaro (past life, first cow) perfectly encapsulates this dilemma – as does the talented actress Benesch (teachers lounge, Babylon Berlin) plays a man in a particularly difficult situation, acting as a go-between between the Germans and the Americans.

While equipment in 1972 was limited to rickety 16mm or bulky studio rigs, Fehlbaum and cinematographer Markus Förderer now have more at their disposal, though they keep the camera work shoulder-to-shoulder to better focus on the performances. Editor Hansjörg Weissbrich expertly edited all of the archival news footage from the time so that we only see what the ABC Sports team actually shot, not a recreation of those images.

The gritty and naturalistic aesthetic seems at odds with one of Felbaum’s previous ambitious sci-fi dramas, colony. While the director did make some changes to what actually happened inside ABC newsrooms, he never lost focus on the enduring importance of reporting real, not fake, news in the most relevant way possible.