September 5

Peter Sarsgaard

I was not particularly looking forward to September 5, a film from Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum, having watched on television the events it depicts in real time. It was a horrific event that I didn't especially want to revisit, but this is a worthy, if unspectacular movie. The event I refer to, for you youngsters, occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Athletes and coaches from the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by members of the Black September terrorist group. The debacle ended with both terrorists and hostages dead. September 5 views these events through the prism of ABC's live coverage. The action of the film is set primarily within the ABC production booth as rookie director Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) juggles live shots and studio chatter during the coverage. 

In 1972, ABC was the most junior and least respected of the three major American television networks. One distinguishing feature of the network was its coverage of sports, particularly The Wide World of Sports, a mainstay of my childhood viewing. The show featured a potpourri of sporting events filmed on videotape, everything from cliff diving in Acapulco to demolition derbies in Islip, New York. The host of the show, Jim McKay, and the executive responsible for it, Roone Arledge, garnered great acclaim and were heading ABC's exclusive (in America) coverage of the 1972 Summer Olympics. Arledge, a hard charging business tyro is played by Peter Sarsgaard. Sarsgaard is not as rotund as Arledge was, even with padding, but aptly captures his cutthroat nature. Arledge, who had boots on the ground, was able to prevent ABC News from wresting control of the coverage from him. He and McKay were eventually able to win nearly every possible plaudit for their work in Munich. This catapulted Arledge, ironically, into being named head of ABC News, an extremely unlikely perch for a figure from televised sports.

The acting in September 5 is uniformly good, in addition to Messrs. Sarsgaard and Magaro, Ben Chaplin and Leonie Benesch are also first rate. That said, September 5 sacrifices characterization for a You Are There immediacy. The interpersonal conflicts end up seeming wan. Also, every time the flick addresses the Holocaust or German guilt, the effect is both trite and portentous. However, the film triumphs in its picturing of ABC's utilization of the crude technology of the analog era. One choice made by Mr. Fehlbaum and his cohorts works in the picture's favor above all others. Most of ABC's name performers are portrayed by actors, like Benjamin Walker's Peter Jennings, or a voice actor for Howard Cosell. However, the makers of this film wisely chose to retain the archival footage of anchor Jim McKay and not use a thesp. McKay's commentary, especially his announcement of the tragic end of the crisis, are indelible to those who were alive at the time and could not be equaled by any actor.      

Night Call

Jonathan Feltre

Michiel Blanchart's Night Call, the Belgian filmmaker's first feature, is a solid and promising thriller. The film is a Hitchcockian man on the run flick that has lead Jonathan Feltre ripping around Brussels pursued by both gangsters and the police. Feltre plays Mady, a locksmith whose titular job helping out a young woman claiming to be locked out of her apartment leads him into mortal danger. The femme, named Claire (Natacha Krief), turns out not to live there and is using Mady to filch a bag of cash (the film's MacGuffin). Mady is soon a wanted man and leads the viewer on a nocturnal and murky prowl of Brussels' brothels, nightclubs, and gangster lairs. He even gets caught up and uses to his advantage a Black Lives Matter demonstration.

Some critics have criticized the film for a facile use of the Black Lives Matter issue, but I think a genre film like this is not really the format for a full investigation of such weighty themes. Night Call deftly integrates the issue within its somewhat formulaic framework. Night Call does show police brutality, but the world Blanchart and co-scenarist Gilles Marchand (Harry He's Here to Help, Who Killed Bambi?) have conjured is a chaotic urban landscape in which combatants are engaged in a survival of the fittest. Not for nothing is the film bracketed by two close-ups of wary German Shepherds. Being a locksmith, Mady has more survival tools than most at his disposal. There are few, if any, false notes by the cast. My favorite performance was by Jonas Bloquet as a thug with secrets. The film portrays its characters not as archetypes of hero and villain, but in shades of grey. Not an earthshaking movie by any means, Night Call holds out the hope for more expansive and personal films from Mr. Blanchart. 

Silent Light

                    
Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light, from 2007, is a deliberately slow peek at a love triangle in a Mennonite community in Mexico. Stolid farmer Johan has six children and a good relationship with his wife Esther, but has baffled himself by falling in love with another member of their community named Marianne. This domestic crisis is handled with equanimity by all concerned, even Johan's preacher father. Johan questions whether his love for Marianne is part of God's design or a temptation instigated by Satanic forces. The slow pace of the film mirrors how the members of the community live, not within the frantic pace of modern life, but in tune with the rhythms of the natural universe.

We are not treated to the history of the affair, but are plunged into the film midstream. The film is bracketed by five minute tracks into a sunrise and and a sunset. The characters of Silent Light are grains of sand within a unfathomable cosmos, but are able to discern traces of divine grace within the vastness of nature. The film has moments of great beauty, but feels, at times, too calculated. There are precious few moments of spontaneity in Silent Light. The flick feels too much like a calculated mashup of Days of Heaven (adultery on the plains) and Ordet (God's benevolence touching all). Certainly, the miracle that ends the film on a grace note did not cause this non-believer to quake with the impact of a revelation.