[DVD] One Day in September (1999)

With the word and controversy out on Steven Spielberg's Munich, instead of settling for a Hollywood drama of the terrorist event that faithful day of the Olympics, you might want to learn more from this Oscar winning documentary.

This documentary uses real footage throughout, with archived news reels, pictures, photos (of the dead, shot, burnt, otherwise), and interviews with family members. But their real coup would be to have interviewed the one and only surviving terrorist who partook in the horror against the spirit of the Olympics.

It also provides those born after 1972, or too young to remember, a look at the events surrounding that day - from the Olympic organizers who are too arrogant to suspend the games, the indifference of the athletes in the Olympic Village, the lack of adequate security (as compared to today), to the politics behind the entire affairs.

Perhaps what will rile you are the West German's botched attempt to rescue the hostages. They were surprisingly ill-prepared, deploying untrained teams, lack of proper equipment, and had to recall countless of attempts, before the final embarassment at the airport, which exposed their severe weakness at handling terrorist incidents. All the hostages were killed in the confrontation, when the terrorists threw hand grenades and emptied bullets into the helicopters they were in. It's only after this that the Germans formed their anti-terror squad, the GSG9 (Counter-strike players will be familiar with this term).

To make matters worse, there was a cover up and collusion between the Germans and the terrorists when the latter apparently hijacked a Lufthansa flight (with only 12 passengers on board, and no women and children), and the former handed over the 3 surviving terrorists of the Munich incident in exchange for safe passage of the flight.

Which is where Spielberg's movie comes in, following squads of Mossad agents hunting down and assassinating those 3 (1 managed to survive countless attempts on his life), together with others who are implicated or involved in the planning of the Munich operation.

This documentary provides an excellent and compelling background, preparing you for the Munich movie coming soon. Watch this.

Code 1 DVD features a relatively barebones version, containing the usual scene selections, subtitles and bonus trailers. But the documentary itself is worth it.