Red Army

Stephane Tanaka

Crazy, instructive, original, and a great testimony of the cold war via the sport point of view

msmichel

What should have been a fascinating journey into cold war politics, sportsmanship and nostalgia winds up being marred by very weak interviews and a surprising lack of direction. Some great footage here and there but the lack of cohesive theme or intent takes the enjoyment out of it. Disappointing.

Michael Harbour

Hard to say if the apparent clumsiness of the interviews is actual struggle, or a deliberately humanizing choice, knocking down some of the barriers between audience, interviewer, and subject. The story of the Soviet Red Army hockey team and its best known members evolves side-by-side with the history of the Cold War. It's has the feel of an amusing trifle but there may be more substance than is immediately obvious.

CarlosEsquives

Documental que evoca una época y mitifica a un grupo de deportistas. ¿Qué hace de este filme sea complejo? Este aspira al retrato épico, protagonistas que marcan una visión tan global como íntima. La remembranza al pasado incluso parece responder al presente. Recopila y reconstruye en base a testimonios históricos y personales. Personajes abrazando su historia con melancolía aunque reviviendo una profunda decepción.

Xose Manoel Ramos

Boa película feita con moito xeito sobre un tema que tampouco era para tanto. Deixase ver, e é unha boa lección de coma dar ritmo a un documental.

Adam Whybray

Soviet kitsch. I found the stubborn integrity of some of the players oddly moving (and I'm not generally a fan of "manly stoicism"). Could have done with more politics perhaps but I was impressed by the variety of contemporaneous archive footage included. Not revelatory, but diverting when I needed to be diverted.

Anton Williams

A documentary of the year

FCC 86

"An outstanding athlete cannot belong solely to himself"