With its many buttons, switches and levers, the broadcast studio in the thriller September 5 could be mistaken for the spaceship bridge of a low-budget sci-fi film. The hierarchies in the claustrophobically confined space are as clear as the Enterprise’s chain of command and so is the goal: no alien planets, but the highest possible ratings. That’s exactly what the Olympic Games in Munich promise, which are set to become the biggest sporting event in TV history in 1972. But then the reporters hear shots.
September 5 tells the story of the Olympic attack from the perspective of the TV makers
The duties of the ABC television crew, led by Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), are dramatically changed on September 5 when members of the Israeli team are taken hostage by the Palestinian group Black September in the nearby Olympic Village. A terrorist attack takes place a few meters away from the TV teamwhich specializes in harmless sports competitions.
Roone and his young producer Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) decide to report the events live. At their side are the interpreter Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch from The Teacher’s Room) and Geoffrey’s mentor Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin). This is how the professionals get to work, while moral questions increasingly arise, above all: Should we accompany the tragedy with live images, even though this might play into the hands of the terrorists?
Reality becomes a captivating story in the thriller
The script by Moritz Binder, Alex David and director Tim Fehlbaum (Hell) processes the real events in the ABC broadcast studio into a thriller with a chamber play setting. The story of the 94-minute-long film largely takes place in the narrow corridors and rooms in which the TV people decide which images and stories their millions of viewers will see.
The outside world and the events in the Olympic Village are mainly fed into the film using archive footage, which is arranged, edited and sent by Geoffrey and Co. at lightning speed. All of this happens under extreme time pressure. The production is accompanied by discussions about dramaturgy and the limits of what can be shown on television. One could almost forget that there is a real world outside of the control room, because on the one hand the studio is isolated and on the other hand all the inmates are constantly trying to to turn real events out there into the most catchy television story possible.
Comparisons to Steven Spielberg are obvious
The German-American co-production is reminiscent of two Spielberg films, on the one hand of course Munich, which recreates the hostage-taking and its consequences. On the other hand, Spielberg’s journalism drama The Publisher comes to mind, in which the handling of the Pentagon Papers is hotly debated. Comparisons to Alan J. Pakula’s The Untouchables are also obvious in terms of the focus on work processes and far-reaching decisions. It would probably be an unfair expectation that September 5 matches the big names, but a nuanced journalistic thriller, unfortunately Cinema viewers can always expect timeless themes such as the staging of terror and especially the Middle East conflict.
The thriller already attracted positive attention at the world premiere in Venice in 2024. At that time the conclusion was:
The Cinematic pressure cooker setting has its advantages. It reduces the characters to their essentials and frees them from unnecessary backstory. In the extreme situation they show who they are and how far they would go for a story. This September 5 strength can also be turned into weakness. The perspective is intentionally limited, not to say restricted. Once you understand how it works, the film hides neither real surprises nor pitfalls. The bow to our present […] you have to tension it yourself. Which brings us back to a strength. Despite the restrictions and the unrelenting tension, September 5 remains a relatively open film in the end. The competition is over, the ball is in the audience’s court to draw their own conclusions.
September 5 has been running in German cinemas since January 9th.