Documentary Movie Reviews

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One Day in September (1999)

Rate: 5
Viewed: 5/19

OneDaySept
5/19: I came straight to One Day in September after seeing 21 Hours at Munich, a 1976 telefilm about the terrorist attack at the 1972 Summer Olympics which resulted in the murder of eleven Israeli athletes.

While watching the documentary, I honestly hated it, which said nothing substantial, and learned only one thing: my criticism of 21 Hours at Munich was too harsh because the movie got many facts correct.

A memo to Ulrich K. Wegener: don't ever laugh about something serious as a terrorist attack. Equally awful is the highly-stylized MTV editing that's complemented with inappropriate rock music. Watching Peter Jennings, Jim Kay, and others relay the news made me realize they weren't any better than the schlock reporters of today.

If there's nothing new to tell, then don't bother making the documentary just to revive a completely forgotten event. My pet peeve for such coverage is the little mention of the victims. All I heard was Andre Spitzer this and that, but what about the rest of the ten men killed? Most of the terrorists involved are nameless and have no stories, too. Instead, the only possible reason why the event generated some attention is the "cool" look of a white-masked Palestinian who obviously serves as the centerpiece of the movie poster.

Although Jamal Al-Gashey is the sole surviving member of the group that's responsible for the attack, he doesn't provide anything of value except to clear up some minutiae of how the events went down. All I wanted to hear is why, but he didn't elaborate much. By the way, the Olympics is a ridiculous sporting spectacle that's never about peace but rather encourages cheating and corruption, bankrupting most of the host cities and/or nations.

All in all, by minimizing the victims' stories and the reasons why the Palestinians conducted the terrorist attack, One Day in September ceases to be a fully truthful documentary about what happened.