DMZ does the movies: Red Army
Gosh, I wanted to love this. I really did -- a documentary on the Soviet Red Army hockey team with Slava Fetisov as the main focus. If you know anything about the sport, what could be better?
A lot, sadly. This isn't a bad documentary. It's clever in spots and has access to a lot of good footage, especially from the Soviet side, that those of us on the western side of the Iron Curtain haven't seen much of. And there is interview footage of the late Vladimir Krutov shot only weeks before his death.
But. But.
This isn't the story of the fabled Red Army team. This isn't the story of Slava Fetisov, hockey hero. This is the story of Slava Fetisov, Minister of Sport for his good friend Vladimir Putin. It's the sports biography of a Putinist politician, basically, and it suffers greatly for it.
Fetisov is a hockey hero, on and off the ice. He is one of the greatest players, one of the very best defensemen, to ever play anywhere. He suffered for his principles under the Soviets and suffered xenophobia and ostracism once he finally made it to the NHL on his own terms before finding 'redemption' with the dynasty-era Detroit Red Wings in the 1990s. He was the driver in a car accident that killed his baby brother, he was the passenger in a car accident that rendered two men (one a teammate) physically and mentally incapacitated. All of that's here, but... for a reason. Like a well-chosen sound bite.
Nor is this an especially insightful telling of the story of one of the greatest hockey teams in history. There isn't a single mention of the 1972 Summit Series. The name Valeri Kharlamov is one of many never brought up. The film's version of the Red Army story starts in Lake Placid in 1980, but the Miracle on Ice is less of a miracle without the context of the 1970s and the Red Army's utter domination of the international game. The semifinal loss mattered beyond simply not getting to play for the gold; it allowed coach Viktor Tikhonov to make brutal changes in how the players lived and trained and that loosely leads to the defection of Alexander Mogilny nine years later, but it's all haphazard and if you don't already know the story, I'm not sure how much you get out of this. And Igor Larionov is nowhere, absolutely nowhere to be found. He is not interviewed at all, nor is Sergei Makarov, both of whom direct their post-playing work toward the NHL, as opposed to Russian loyalist Alexei Kasatonov, who is interviewed and shown in file footage. Larionov is just as much a part of the story of the Green Unit as Fetisov and was in the first wave of Red Army players allowed to go west. He's a thoughtful man -- his nickname as a player was "the Professor" -- and has a lot to say on the subject. (I own an English-language copy of his 1990 biography.) They say that Tikhonov didn't want to be interviewed for the film, but there is no explanation offered for Larionov's absence.
So, bottom line at the bottom, I am disappointed, but I still think that if you've got an interest in the game or the team or the era, it's worth 76 minutes of your time.
Also posted at DW.
A lot, sadly. This isn't a bad documentary. It's clever in spots and has access to a lot of good footage, especially from the Soviet side, that those of us on the western side of the Iron Curtain haven't seen much of. And there is interview footage of the late Vladimir Krutov shot only weeks before his death.
But. But.
This isn't the story of the fabled Red Army team. This isn't the story of Slava Fetisov, hockey hero. This is the story of Slava Fetisov, Minister of Sport for his good friend Vladimir Putin. It's the sports biography of a Putinist politician, basically, and it suffers greatly for it.
Fetisov is a hockey hero, on and off the ice. He is one of the greatest players, one of the very best defensemen, to ever play anywhere. He suffered for his principles under the Soviets and suffered xenophobia and ostracism once he finally made it to the NHL on his own terms before finding 'redemption' with the dynasty-era Detroit Red Wings in the 1990s. He was the driver in a car accident that killed his baby brother, he was the passenger in a car accident that rendered two men (one a teammate) physically and mentally incapacitated. All of that's here, but... for a reason. Like a well-chosen sound bite.
Nor is this an especially insightful telling of the story of one of the greatest hockey teams in history. There isn't a single mention of the 1972 Summit Series. The name Valeri Kharlamov is one of many never brought up. The film's version of the Red Army story starts in Lake Placid in 1980, but the Miracle on Ice is less of a miracle without the context of the 1970s and the Red Army's utter domination of the international game. The semifinal loss mattered beyond simply not getting to play for the gold; it allowed coach Viktor Tikhonov to make brutal changes in how the players lived and trained and that loosely leads to the defection of Alexander Mogilny nine years later, but it's all haphazard and if you don't already know the story, I'm not sure how much you get out of this. And Igor Larionov is nowhere, absolutely nowhere to be found. He is not interviewed at all, nor is Sergei Makarov, both of whom direct their post-playing work toward the NHL, as opposed to Russian loyalist Alexei Kasatonov, who is interviewed and shown in file footage. Larionov is just as much a part of the story of the Green Unit as Fetisov and was in the first wave of Red Army players allowed to go west. He's a thoughtful man -- his nickname as a player was "the Professor" -- and has a lot to say on the subject. (I own an English-language copy of his 1990 biography.) They say that Tikhonov didn't want to be interviewed for the film, but there is no explanation offered for Larionov's absence.
So, bottom line at the bottom, I am disappointed, but I still think that if you've got an interest in the game or the team or the era, it's worth 76 minutes of your time.
Also posted at DW.