Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Seyneb Saleh, Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid, Sebastian Rudolph, Doval’e Glickman, Evgenia Dodina, Roger Azar, Igal Naor, Romi Aboulafia, Shadi Mar’i, Anna Skladchikova, Juliane Köhler, Omer Perelman Striks, Mehdi Meskar, Anton Spieker, David Zimmerschied, Johnny Arbid, Marius Ahrendt, Lisa Hofer, Shenja Lacher, Bernd Hölscher, Paul Wollin, Marko Copor, Matthias Reichwald, Lotta Jauch, Bozidar Kocevski, Mouataz Alshaltouh, Mazen Aljubbeh, Robert Maaser, Seumas F. Sargent, Kailas Mahadevan.
History recalls every minute detail of any atrocity caused in the name of any god you choose to name, but those delivered by human hands are slowly forgotten, names erased, intentions watered down; it is our way of eventually overlooking all but the most heinous of crimes, be it national, by government, or those that are committed by a single person and which are beyond appalling, but serve their own purpose to deter others from falling from the height we place them upon.
History recalls, but often allows itself to be repeated, and the more that television and the various news agencies find connections between events, so the blatantly obvious on dates that are steeped in meaning, and blood, will be commemorated, and arguably looked upon to be repeated.
This is the underlying message of Michal Aviram and Martin Behnke’s six-part drama, Munich Games.
As the title suggest, Munich Games will provoke memories for many, the despair and fear that haunted the 1972 Olympic Games, the slaughter, the assassination of two Israeli athletes and the taking of nine others as hostages, and how that even fifty years on from the terror visited upon a sporting event by the Black September group can leave a mark of dread and anxiety upon those just employed because they are good at their chosen pastime.
The politics behind the drama is such that the world has not changed in its response to anger, the animosity between two sets of people, the hatred to be found in ideology, between separation and division of land is the fault of all governments and all who seek to place themselves as a higher form of life than their neighbour; and it is this which gives the series its power to offer an eye on how control, and fear is perpetuated in the modern day.
Set against the belief that an historic football match between an Israeli side and a German team can bring people together, Munich Games asks a fundamental question, who gets to choose who is on either side, who are the ones under attack, who is defending their honour more.
Thought-provoking, almost provocative in the light of events around the world in the last fifty years, history recalls them all, but do we truly remember what each one was fighting for, and who paid the price in the name of terrorism in all its faces and beliefs.
Ian D. Hall