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ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER Send This Review to a Friend
The slaughter of Israelis participating in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, by terrorists is chillingly and absorbingly recalled in the vivid documentary "One Day In September," directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by John Battsek and Arthur Cohn.
Olympic officials are skewered for allegedly having as their main concern that the games should continue and German officials are targeted for bungling the situation. Worse, the German government is taken to task for what would appear to have been a set up enabling captured terrorists to engineer an escape to safe territory so they wouldn't have to be tried and become a cause for retaliation by other terrorists.
The film scores a coup interviewing the only surviving member of the attackers. Mostly, the film deals with events and relatives of the victims, with clips culled from the archives mixed with footage especially shot for this production. There are poignant moments as well as harrowing ones, and the film honors the memory of such victims as fencing coach Andre Spitzer and murdered weight lifter Josef Romano.
Unfortunately "One Day in September" is more than history. It is also a timely reminder of enduring conflict. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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