September 5
The title is baffling, but by the end you will ‘remember, remember the 5th of September…1972’. A slower, more traditional-style drama, written by Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum and Alex David, which considers the ethics of live streaming media events and news, and what it does to our souls — and the audience — in the process.
We’re in 1970’s Munich — Clear Water Credence is jammin’ on the car radio. Men have big sideburns — and even bigger moustaches. An American network (ABC) sports journalism branch is reporting on the Munich Olympics and desperately trying to get an angle by asking Jewish athletes what they think of competing in the country that tried to kill their families and expunge their ancestors. Thankfully, Israeli and Arab nation athletes are ignoring the journos, having fun in the sun and appreciating the peace. Germans too are trying to move on and yet legislation as a result of the recent Nazi past influences this very event.
However, the peace doesn’t last for long — gunshots are heard in the distance and no-one can work out what’s going on. Bringing in a native German speaker and new translator to the team, plus a screwdriver, the team start to eavesdrop on rival media channels and radio broadcasts (including police radio) to gain information. They also realise that they’re in the right place at the right time and can broadcast what turns out to be a hostage taking and demands with threats of loss of life… live.
Maximising their location, they move a camera outside — only to face their first dilemma. They’re broadcasting live — but they’re also broadcasting live to the terrorists who have TV and access to their broadcasts in the athlete’s flats. Other ethical dilemmas come into sharp relief pretty quickly — what will they show, who are the hostages, who will see the broadcast and what if their broadcast makes the situation worse? If the hostages are executed, as the terrorist group have threatened, will they broadcast this on live TV for everyone — and their families — to see? Whose truth are they telling and how do they verify a source?
Another dilemma is what to call the group threatening the athletes. Arabs? The name the group use themselves ‘Black September’? The name we give them ‘Palestinians’? Terrorists? Extremists? And as the drama continues, this is not the only time that language will take centre stage.
Rapidly adapting to what they can see and hear, some journalists are sent out into the field — one disguised as an athlete. From eavesdropping on hostage negotiations, the team learn that the group want an exchange of 200 Arab prisoners for the 14 hostages — two of whom they’ve killed already. They also want an escort to an airport, a plane made ready and the hostages put in a helicopter to take them along as a collective human shield. There’s a horrible moment when a hostage is held over a balcony and speaks to government officials, It’s absolutely terrifying in its chaos and unpredictability and makes you think of the horrors the freed and remaining hostages are going through now.
Best of all, this is very time-bound media production. Film takes time to develop. There are limited broadcast slots and networks available. Cameras have limited range. Electricity keeps cutting out, partly due to a battle between French and Germans over cables. Satellite connections can be lost (or lost connections faked to buy time); pictures can be removed by police decree, so that you only have sound and descriptions. Cameras struggle with position as they strain to zoom in to work out what’s going on. Worse still is when some of the team (including the translator) follow the transport to the airport and can see a firefight taking place in the airport, then have to weigh up which stories and apparent facts they can trust — and consider how much time can be given to verifying stories and fact-checking before they release new information — live. Do they follow protocol and ensure that they have three sources or do they just go ahead and add a cover-all phrase? It is or isn’t it a competition?
Faking and click baiting are nothing new. What is really sad is the hurt that the story released does to everyone. Intriguingly the team reflect afterwards, feeling their consciences and the cost of finding the truth (or just chasing a story which no-one else has). What price just taking a picture of some terrible event?
Shockingly, this was the first live broadcast of a hostage/terrorist act on TV — and watched by 900 million! Making it one of the most viewed broadcasts of all time…
Like Network, there are some very thoughtful — and thought-provoking nuances — mixed in here. Gender — the female translator Marianne (despite having unique and much needed skills) is seen, at first, as very much there to make the tea and do as she’s told. And she has to get everyone to shut up to keep doing her job. Captions have to be created by hand for the camera as the team decide which angle they’re going to present the story through. As the truth unravels, the team have to make some really tough choices and ethically face up to themselves, the consequences of their choices, and the fate of the people involved.
It’s also a battle of the generations as older and younger, president and wanna-be news president, journalists and anchors face off against each other. And despite the terrible situation, the competitions continue and athletes relax close by, unaware.
Intriguingly too we see a media and police unit working entirely separately. The local police are reacting to events outside of their training. Should they be blamed, mocked, criticised or pitied as they peddle wildly and ineptly to catch up with what is happening in their local area?
Leonie Benesch delivers a beautifully nuanced performance as the translator Marianne Gebhardt. Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge, President of ABC Sports; John Magaro as Geoffrey Mason, head of the media control room in Munich and Ben Chaplin as Marvin Bader, Head of Operations at ABC Sports battle, inspire and conspire to make that shot count (in more ways than one). But they are changed, and even harmed, by the ‘content’, the news ‘story’ they broadcast. Jacques Lesgards plays Zinedine Soualem, a French journalist, who supports the technical side of the broadcast and wants to be in the room where it happens.
Watch out for Sean Penn in the producer credits — and enjoy the beautifully atmospheric and haunting score by Lorenz Dangel.
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