The rise of Middle Eastern terrorism is sharply drawn into focus here in this excellent thriller that prophesised volumes before its time. After a decade of aircraft hijacking and public displays of destruction aimed at drawing attention to Arab discontent having only marginal effect on Western consciousness, the massacre of Israeli athletes with the world watching at the 1972 Munich Olympics made terrorism a front and centre issue for the United States and the world. The movie's terrorist group is Black September, the cabal made famous as that responsible for the Munich events. The idea that supposedly patriotic Anglo-Saxon Americans could assist in such a diabolical plan was exceptionally bold, showing a precipitous downside to American military power after Vietnam and Frankenheimer shows great perception in drawing attention to the human casualties the war left behind, an issue that would rise to great prominence in American politics in the years afterward. The use of the blimp's image as a peaceful, quiet device synonymous with America's biggest sporting celebration on a day when the country is at its most relaxed heightens our anxiety knowing something so well-loved and apparently harmless is about to be the delivery device for unparalleled mass murder. Twenty five years ago the scale of the terrorist's plan and the death and destruction envisaged would have been dismissed by detractors as overkill and scaremongering. How could white Anglo-Saxon Protestants with no apparent connection to anti-American influences kill men, women and children en masse in their own country? How could anyone be capable of carefully planning and executing a plot to indiscriminately kill thousands of innocent people in such a callous and brutal manner? If only history had proved us all wrong.
Review of Black Sunday
