Recipient of the 2000 Oscar for Best Documentary — a category most people assumed the popular Cuban music doc The Buena Vista Social Club would nail — 1999’s One Day in September is just now having a limited theatrical release, following its debut on HBO this past fall. Now we can see what makes One Day in September so extraordinary a film. This documentary unfolds the gripping drama that occurred on the day of Sept. 5, 1972, during the Munich Olympics, when eight armed Palestinian terrorists took 11 members of the Israeli delegation hostage. By the time the 21-hour crisis was over, 17 people were dead — the 11 Israelis, five of the eight terrorists, and one German police officer. During most of this time, the Olympic games continued, while its organizers sought to maintain the illusion of international fellowship and good will instead of projecting the chaotic mayhem that was occurring in the heart of the Olympic village. Nearly 30 years later, few remember the assault, and the specific details are all but obscured. What we remember of the ’72 Olympics are things like the seven astonishing gold medals won by swimmer Mark Spitz, the captivating debut of Olga Korbut, the U.S. basketball team’s stunning upset by the USSR ballplayers during the last three seconds of play. Bloodshed, masked terrorists, sharpshooters, a PR fiasco, international political wrangling, and a 24/7 global newswatch are all part of a dim recollection, if remembered at all. Macdonald’s documentary relates these events in a relentless timeline, a ticking clock adding to the story’s suspense and tension. Like a good Hollywood suspenser, a political thriller by Costa-Gavras, or The Thin Blue Line by documentary maverick Errol Morris (about whom Macdonald made the TV documentary A Brief History of Errol Morris), One Day in September delivers its spine-chilling tale toward its immutable conclusion. That the story is fact and not fiction does not mitigate its effect on our tension receptors. Fascinating details emerge along the way. Although little background information is provided about the Black September terrorist group, other than explaining that it had its origins in the sorrow of the Palestinian refugee camps, Macdonald saves his harshest condemnation for the German authorities. Caught between their postwar demilitarization and their determination to put a fresh face on their soiled international reputation, German officials are shown doing virtual backflips to prevent further scandal from occurring during their hosting of the ’72 Olympics — an opportunity they had not had since 1936 when Hitler used the games to promote his ideas of Aryan superiority (see Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia for more background here). The Israeli military was prevented from entering German soil to enact a commando raid against the terrorists (lending insight into Israeli thinking before their counterattack on Entebbe four years later). Were the situation not so grave, the German government would almost seem comical in its extended tactical blunders and miscalculations. However, One Day in September scores its ultimate coup de grace through its interviews. Macdonald has lined up an amazing collection of interviewees, including Jamal al Gashey, the one surviving member of the Black September terrorist squad, who speaks here publicly for the first time, and several German police officials whose “on the record” reminiscences offer numerous instances of strategic gaffes and cold-hearted self-interest. Everywhere one turns in One Day in September the tension mounts and the material grows ever-more shocking. The whole world was watching in 1976, but come 2001 we may finally be seeing.
This article appears in February 16 • 2001.
