Icarus
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
It’s Tokyo Olympics time, so we’re getting a little into the season here at Films Fatale. Each weekday will involve a film relating to the Olympics in any way. They can be sports films or other genres, and real or fictitious.
The mythology behind Icarus — the son of an inventor who flew too close to the sun — contains a message that going far enough will result in disaster, and that sometimes we need to dial things back. The documentary film Icarus details such an occurrence. Bryan Fogel set out to do an experiment where he takes performance enhancing drugs and see how far he can go undetected by modern technology (as evidence that our methods need to improve). However, he came across exactly the right person in anti-doping specialist Gregory Rodchenkov, who is in hiding from the Russian government in fear of the endangerment of his safety. He is separated from his loved ones due to his public uncovering of a large amount of doping done by Russian athletes. So, Fogel will continue to tell his story then.
Icarus becomes a whole new ball game for Fogel: just how far does this cheating go? The further down we go this tunnel of dishonest sportsmanship, the more trouble we find: lives that were in danger or even compromised, for starters. So much doping went on that we don’t even know where the cases end; a certain number of participants simply doesn’t exist here. I was beyond livid watching Icarus the first time years ago, and seeing just how easily an entire group of cheaters got away without a single hitch; if anything, Russia was deemed a record breaking nation during the 2014 Olympics of Sochi. Where is the event that unites everyone for pure athleticism and talent? It wasn’t here in an event smeared by lies.
Icarus goes the distance with how dishonest the Sochi Olympics were.
All I could feel after the documentary was empty. The Olympics feel like a getaway from all of the troubles of life, since we get to see the best athletes of the world compete at the highest of levels. If anything, I can be enraged by the amount of unethical doping took place during Sochi, but now I am left wondering just how far this revelation can go. What other events — not even the Olympics alone — have had cheating that went under the radar? We’re not sure, since even the studies here are beyond eye opening (and I don’t think one film can handle even more of this kind of sickening news). Icarus does just enough with its tricky messages. It keeps its focus primarily on this new realization Fogel faces, since there’s enough dirt here to dig. By the end, you won’t want to watch or do anything else anyway. We have flown too far to the sun. A global joy is now uncertain, and a former time of celebration is now tainted as one of the biggest fallacies in sports history.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.