ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER

בס"ד
6 Adar


On the 30th of Av last year, I watched a documentary called One Day in September. It happened to be September 4th, the secular anniversary of the "Black September" slaughter of 11 Israeli Olympians at the 1972 Munich Games.

I don't remember the events of that Labour Day very clearly, as I wasn't quite 4 years old, but I do remember a lot of frowns & crossed brows on the TV & adults being even more preoccupied with the news than usual. I was still of an age where I found the news interminably boring, but anything involving Jews caught my attention.

This 1999 documentary, featuring interviews with the one surviving terrorist (the Mossad never found him, but some film makers did), was truly sickening. Don't watch it if you are prone to nightmares, as the subject matter is disturbing on a visceral level.

I went to see Munich, one of tonight's Best Picture nominees, back in December with my buds Ariel & Leora & the gang. I enjoyed it, but then I "nest" with all movies I watch & take something positive away with me. Why could I never be a film critic?

Because my Dad was a cinema manager & projectionist for Famous Players, I spent my childhood in some of these theatres, like this one & this one. He used to say, "There are no bad movies, just some movies are better than others".

Oscar night was always a big event in our family. We'd have dinner on trays while glued to the TV all night. With my Dad running the theatre, Mum selling tickets & my big sisters behind the candy bar, we'd seen ALL the movies each year & had our opinions. Where was I? Usually wandering about generally getting into trouble. In some of the smaller towns we lived in, Dad spent Academy Award night at the local TV or radio station commenting on the results during the breaks.

I often wonder how he would have enjoyed & what he would have thought of the films being made today, decades after his death. The tradition continues in our family, with my nephew Jeremy managing the Capitol 6 Theatre in Victoria, on the site of the old Capitol which Dad used to manage in the 1950's.

The early 70's was an odd time - even I could tell that, as young as I was. With crazy movies like Deliverance, streakers being all the rage & popular music being all about easy, haphazard, drug-enhanced sexual encounters. The same period saw the Yom Kipur War, numerous plane hijackings & the murder of the Israeli atheletes.

I think Munich's soundtrack, costumes & set design reflected the way the world was becoming unhinged at that point in history. I'm not sure whether Spielberg was intending to re-open dialogue or raise consciousness with the way he shaped this film. It didn't win its 2006 Best Picture of the Year nomination, but if nothing else the memory of those Olympians, Israel's best & brightest stars, should never be allowed to fade.

May it be only for a blessing.




Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Torah, Canada, journal, weblog, blog, diary, Israel, terrorism, oscars, movies, family, politics, TV.