Week 3.2 – ‘Icarus’

Admittedly, I have not yet watched any documentaries through Docplay, but I’ve delved into a few on Netflix that I’ve had on my list for a while. One of these was ‘Icarus’, a documentary exposing the state-sanctioned Russian doping scandal in 2016. While watching it I was conscious to take note of the opening sequence, something we were instructed to do in order to gain inspiration for our own films and also to gauge an idea of how films can effectively evoke interest right from the beginning. The opening shot was a quote from George Orwell, who is a recurring point of interest for the film. This approach made for a well-rounded narrative, as Orwell’s concept for 1984 and the interpretation of ‘truth’ is a central part of the story and is continually referred to throughout. The documentary is well produced and has a cinematic feel to it, and comes off as an entertaining fictional piece rather than a retelling of actual events.

Interestingly, the story that emerged was not what the film-maker Bryan Fogel had intended to uncover. He began the documentary with the intention of taking performance enhancing drugs and recording the effect it would have on his athletic performance, prompted by the revelation that his idol Lance Armstrong had been doping. After enlisting the help of one of Russia’s top bio-chemists who had worked for decades with many of Russia’s elite athletes and Olympians, he uncovered something far more sinister; that the majority of elite athletes coming out of Russia were using performance enhancing drugs under the protection of major political parties including Putin, the Russian Sports Minister and the anti-doping commission in Russia. Something we touched on in the first week, and what ended up being the case for this film, was how film-makers may set out with a preconceived idea of the narrative they intend to follow but may uncover something more interesting and end up following a different path. Documenting the effects of doping and seeing how far it could take its consumer was the initial premise of this film, yet became more of a thrilling geopolitical exposé once the film-maker chose to abandon his original idea and take the more interesting albeit dangerous path.