Almanac Film Reviews: Re-Living An Olympic Nightmare

 

 

I was only nine years old when the 1972 Munich Olympics were beamed back to our black and white TV in WA.

 

It’s mind boggling to me how I can remember those events and yet I can barely re-construct the activities of yesterday.

 

Be that as it may, my memories of the most controversial Olympics ever, are still vivid fifty-odd years on.

 

There was:

 

• Shane Gould winning five medals in the pool as a fifteen year old.
• Basketballer Ed Palubiskas missing the most points record in the games tournament by one. (He would take out the most points in the 1976 Montreal Games). Ed actually ran a clinic on our old concrete courts for us kids in my hometown Kwinana shortly after the Olympics. A big thrill for us at the time.
• The US basketball team thought they’d won the gold medal by one point, but the Russians protested and an extra three seconds was allocated. A Russian hurled the ball in from the back line, where it made it to the Russian ‘key”. It was taken by a Russian player who scored, winning the game for the Russians by one point. All hell broke loose and the US team boycotted the medal ceremony.
• Mark Spitz’s seven gold medals in the pool whilst sporting that Australian Cricket Team moustache.
• Olga Korbut destroyed the opposition in gymnastics and took the sport to another level.
• Raelene Boyle won silver medals in the 100m and 200m, only to be defeated by an East German, Renate Stecher who was so ‘juiced up’ on steroids she looked like Ben Johnson and was lucky to not spontaneously combust at the finish line.

 

But there was one controversy that thankfully has never been repeated since, that of the attack on the Israeli team from Palestinian terrorists. This is examined very well in the film September 5 which is officially released on February 6.

 

The plot is all set within the American ABC central control facility based at the Munich games and only a few hundred metres from the athletes village where the terror is taking place.

 

In the early morning of September 5, word gets out that some athletes have been taken hostage and one has been shot.

 

The ABC team quickly assemble cameras to vantage points as well as arrange for one of their team to pretend to be an athlete to obtain some inside footage in the village.

 

All the while producer Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) is flying by the seat of his pants trying to keep the messages flowing clearly to the anchor Jim Mackay whose real footage from 1972 is cleverly woven into the film.

 

The thing that resonates is the film’s authenticity. It definitely looks like 1972 and has a claustrophobic quality about it, given the location of the ABC’s central control facility.

 

The film also highlights the challenges faced by the staff with technology, especially under time constraints. It was quite fascinating to see how antiquated everything was in order to get the telecast out to six hundred million-odd viewers.

 

There is plenty of tension and there are moments that question the ethical boundaries of journalism around filming tragedies of this nature.

 

The acting is solid and I found the whole film very compelling. Whether you’re old enough to remember Munich 1972 or not, this film has plenty to offer. 8/10

 

 

 

 

 

To read more from Ian Wilson click here.

 

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