Courtesy of Slava Fetisov/Sony Pictures Classics
Left to right: Alex Kasatanov, Viktor Tikhonov, Vladislav Tretiak, Igor Larionov, Viacheslav “Slava†Fetisov
Rated PG
Directed by Gabe Polsky
3.5/4 Stars
Sports are competitive, whether the players are hitting a tennis ball or running with a football toward the end zone. When the contest is between teams representing rival nations, opposing ideologies and contradictory ways of life, the competition assumes a more profound dimension than any Super Bowl or World Series.
Director Gabe Polsky’s Red Army documents how the Cold War between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. played out on the world’s ice rinks. The Soviet economy was creaky and usually inefficient, but the Kremlin was able to make great strides and maintain the highest standards in those fields it prioritized. The Soviets reached outer space before the Americans, and their system produced some of the finest ballet dancers, classical musicians and chess masters. Likewise, enormous resources were invested in Russia’s most popular sport, hockey. The Red Army Club, the U.S.S.R.’s top team, is the subject of Polsky’s documentary.
Red Army focuses on the latter years of Soviet hockey through the players who eventually made their way to the U.S., especially team captain Slava Fetisov. Red Army Club members often began training at age 8, working their way up an athletic system whose pinnacle was the Red Army Club. Their coach, Anatoly Tarasov, was a beloved mentor who wrote the book on Soviet hockey, literally. He regarded the U.S.-Canadian style of playing as a knucklehead’s game, and drew inspiration for his club from ballet (his trainers could skate backwards and sideways with agility) and chess (they were like square-skipping knights on the ice). The spirit of collectivism was also at play. Teamwork was everything. To put it another way, Tarasov’s men were like professionals in the most American of music, jazz, by learning to improvise within the structure, watch each other’s moves and respond in the moment.
As Red Army shows, the Tarasov method usually resulted in crushing defeat for foreign opponents, but began to come apart along with the Soviet Union. Dismissed in a fit of bad temper by Communist Party boss Leonid Brezhnev, Tarasov was replaced by the unpopular Viktor Tikhonov, who ran the club on military lines. As the U.S.S.R. succumbed to stagnation and loss of morale, and as Mikhail Gorbachev began opening the doors to this closed society, players defected to the NHL or were sold by the Soviets to U.S. teams.
Red Army is visually dazzling with Soviet propaganda posters coming to life and a surprising cache of Soviet home videos showing boys learning hockey by hitting empty cans across the ice. The memories in the interviews are mixed. The Red Army Club members grew up in cramped apartments sharing the toilet with other families, and were shadowed by the KGB when their team traveled abroad. And yet, their NHL careers were disappointing until the core of the Club reunited as members of the Detroit Red Wings, where their intricate ensemble playing demolished their boneheaded opponents. They missed home. Fetisov is now Russia’s minister of sports, tasked with recreating the best of the Tarasov system that produced so many winners during the Cold War.
