⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I had to look up the director as soon as the film ended.
Lately I've become convinced that film just doesn't do it for me anymore. When I was younger, I could be easily captivated by the simulated worlds inside movies, but as I get older it happens less and less. The last good film I saw was ruined by its stupid third wave feminist subtext. But I don't have to explain this to you, you understand the same thing about films. They just don't do it like they did it before.
It was completely random that I watched September 5 yesterday. I had never heard of it. It's not a memorable title. I didn't know the actors or the director. I can't say what made me choose it out of all the other critically-acclaimed titles on the carousel. But for some reason, without intention, I flipped it on and thought, let's give this a chance. And it did what films used to do. I was captivated.
September 5 is a historical drama thriller. The setting is the ABC live broadcast control room at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The action is a terrorist attack. The story is delivered by completely ordinary people, the ones you never see when something either goes very right or very wrong, but you wonder what residue rattles in their heads when they go home.
My favorite character in the film is the mechanics of broadcasting on a major news network in 1972. I would watch a film on just that. The task of bringing a living picture to a million homes as it happens outside your door, the cords and cables, the clicks and captions, all the processes are familiar in name but foreign in practice. We've already left them in the dust. With the amount of time and care the film spends on these details, it is clear to me that the people who made this film love film.
That's what I miss when I'm watching movies. This one's got it. You should watch it.
There's also, in this film, a rich historical context that can be added to conversations today on current conflicts. It's worth turning back and giving a second glance at the recent past. I don't know if I could say exactly what it teaches, but there is some lesson there.