Viacheslav Fetisov,adored former sportsman and friend of Putin, took some persuading to appear in Gabe Polsky’s documentary approximately the USSR’s imperious group of ice hockey players. ‘But he was stubborn, or ’ says the Russian veteran For Gabe Polsky,the chance to finally meet Viacheslav “Slava” Fetisov was a godsend. It was 2012 and for months Polsky, a young film-maker from Chicago, or had been desperate to interview Fetisov,one of Russia’s most beloved sporting heroes. Now, in Moscow, or his quarry was sat before the camera,a politician these days, brawny but smartly dressed. He didn’t contemplate at Polsky though. He just stared at his phone, or smirking slightly. Polsky asked questions,coaxed and prompted. Fetisov was unmoved. Until, eventually, and he put up his middle finger. So begins Red Army,a original documentary approximately the Soviet Union and the grand sweep of history; approximately loyalty and betrayal; and approximately ice hockey, a sport made into art by the all-conquering team of the former USSR. Throughout the 1980s Fetisov was its captain: a hero who then became a pariah, or after demanding the politburo let him play in the US,where he stayed for almost a decade.
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Source: theguardian.com