September 5 (2024) Review

September 5 (2024) takes you inside the ABC broadcasting room in Munich while a sports news crew scrambles to cover the 1972 Olympics hostage crisis. Told by a Swiss documentarian and co-written by a German writer about an American news crew, September 5 tries its best to be apolitical about the hostage crisis while focusing on news as a medium and the ethics of journalism.

Having walked out of the cinema, it just occurred to me how confusing and bizarre this particular screening is. After being surprisingly absent from the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, the film is now having its Canadian premiere right here at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. People have speculated that TIFF excluded the film from the festival due to the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The context draws, if not, even more attention to the question of "Why now?" Why tell this story now?

Cutting between real footage and re-enactments, the film seems eager to impress you with its "objectivity." As outsiders to Israel-Palestinian relations, its European makers see the tragic event as an opportunity to examine the heavy responsibility that falls on the news crew as conveyors of "truth." The film is more interested politically in, if anything, how Germany yearned for a post-war comeback story and how horribly it handled the whole situation. This strategic avoidance of the elephant in the room ironically draws more attention to the film's sensitive subject matter and leaves a bitter taste in the viewer's mouth as the credits roll.

John Magaro shines as an up-and-coming producer, Geoff, finding himself shoved under the spotlight by unlikely circumstances. He perfectly captures the uneasiness of thriving under pressure. Peter Sarsgaard and Ben Chaplin give compelling performances as the legendary broadcaster Roone Arledge and ABC operations manager Marvin Bader. A real standout is Leonie Benesch, who plays Marianne, an underlooked German translator who only needs to prove her worth because of who she is.

Politics aside, this fast-paced thriller is held together by outstanding technicalities. The up-close, handheld shot-on-film footage gives the film a textualized edge while withholding intensity. Masterfully constructed by editor Hansjörg Weißbrich, the film's narrative and physical space become an especially effective tool to establish suspense. It gets even more impressive when you hear from director Tim Fehlbaum that they ran two cameras to capture long (in duration) shots in order to emulate a news crew covering the event. While good editing is by no means over-editing, the frequent and careful cuts Weißbrich places in these long takes heighten the pace while still managing to deliver the narrative smoothly.

From props to costumes, the production design effectively exhibits Fehlbaum's extensive efforts to accurately represent 70s TV operations. Quite a few props were sourced, according to the director, from enthusiasts of retro tech. Sound, then, also rises to the occasion as the mixer fills your ears with clicks and pops from the machinery. The result of these astonishing technical achievements is an effortless immersion into the story world, which grabs you and soaks you into its rapid pace.

As the film keeps on building its pace, you can't help but wonder how they would deescalate things to a stop. The ending eases into quietness but is only satisfactory at best. You don't see the characters take it all in after you catch them tired from shock. Perhaps the film has made it clear that its only interest lies in that broadcasting room, and everything outside of it fades in relevancy. Records have been broken in viewership numbers, but there is no feeling of success. Exploring that side of it could bring some of the character depth the film is lacking. At the end of the day, the entire news crew as a whole is a better character collectively than its individual parts.