Product: One Day in September [VHS] (2006)
Rating: 1.0
One Day in September
It's difficult to believe that this film won the Academy Award for best documentary a few years ago, but it only goes to prove what has long been suspected: The MPAA's taste tends toward the conventional and the mediocre.The most significant criticism--which demands to be addressed before any discussion of the film's "artistic" merit--is the ethical dubiousness of One Day in September. Weaving together montages of masked Palestinians and sporting events at Munich Olympic games with a 70's rock music soundtrack, the film seems morbidly distasteful--as if it were trying, very forcefully, to ratchet up the drama factor in what is already a very (sad and) dramatic event. The strategy of the film is blatantly sensationalistic and exploitative throughout, arranging the "scenes" and narration with all the subtlety of a bad Hollywood political thriller. As if this weren't bad enough, the filmmakers went so far as to enlist the direct assistance of the only only surving terrorist, who--speaking on conditions of anonymity, for obvious reasons--contributes little in the way of insight or information to the documentary.Otherwise, the film has a disjointed, unsatisfying feel to it. The narration dwells for too long on certain aspects of the events and too little on others. The chaos which ensues at the airport is not successfully clarified, and remains largely chaos to the viewers. The film inserts a provocative allegation that the German government arranged the hi-jacking of the Lebanon-Germany Lufthansa flight in order to be rid of the terrorists; this may very well be true, but the film does not discuss this matter sufficiently. It has the feeling of JFK-like conspiracy theory thrown in at the end for shock value.And lastly, but certain not least of all, the gruesome photographs of the dead victims seem entirely unnecessary and insensitive. (At the end of the film, the photographs of the remaining victims are shown with rock music playing over them, as before.)I highly discourage anyone from viewing or purchasing this film. I'd recomend reading a book or books on the subject, from which you will get, no doubt, a more comprehensive and humane account of these events.