Communism

Red Army is a smart and incisive film

By Jenny Alvarez

Photos Agency

 Red Army is a feature documentary by Gabe Polsky and talks about the Soviet Union and the most successful dynasty in sports history: the Red Army hockey team. Told from the perspective of its captain Slava Fetisov, the story portrays his transformation from national hero to political enemy. From the USSR to Russia, the film examines how sport mirrors social and cultural movements and parallels the rise and fall of the Red Army team with the Soviet Union.

With many black-and-white film clips this documentary talks to former superstar players, retired KGB officers, sports journalists and veteran bureaucrats.This includes good and bad experiences of glory days of the Soviet national ice hockey team. It also shows how Communism would be the  best and worst for some athletes and the Red Army was a single unit, and how that was both the secret to their success, and also how they became outdated as larger economic circumstances changed the face of the country and national hockey. Obviously these great athletes had to face many issues like their personalities,politics, etc which led to the team from national hero to political enemy.