Director Gabe Polsky hopes Red Army documentary gains further traction in Canada
It was the highlight of his life.
Last September, Gabe Polsky’s documentary Red Army had just made its Canadian premiere in front of a packed house at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Amongst the crowd were some of the biggest icons of the game, including Wayne Gretzky and Scotty Bowman.
“The look on their faces, it’s not worth money – they lit up," said Polsky. "After the film ended I was like 'Scotty, what do you think?' he was like 'Hold on – I’m on the phone'. He was telling all his friends about it.”
Polsky’s film examines Soviet hockey from its roots through the fall of the USSR, focusing on HC CSKA, more widley known as Red Army. The story is told primarily through the eyes of the central interview subject, legendary defenceman Viacheslav (Slava) Fetisov.
Since the Canadian premiere, the momentum has not carried over in hockey-mad Canada as much as Polsky would have liked.
While critics have roundly praised the film across Europe and North America, Canadian audiences, especially in target markets like Toronto and Vancouver, have not gravitated to the film as anticipated. The film opened at the end of January and played for two weeks in both cities.
Cineplex, which showed Red Army, does not disclose the box office results for an individual film.
“Most writers and journalists are deep thinkers, they are intelligent, they appreciate art and beauty, I don’t know why – they think about things critically, they were incredibly supportive about this film. I went into some radio show with total jocks – knuckleheads, they also get it- they don’t see sport, they see magic,” said Polsky via telephone from Los Angeles. “I don’t think reviews say it all – but I think anyone that goes to see this film will appreciate it on some level. Maybe hockey fans in Canada are overstimulated, they get too much hockey.”
The marketing campaign, spearheaded by Mongrel Media, has taken a grassroots approach, favouring media releases to radio and television advertising. This is generally the case for most documentary films.
While a lack of high budget advertising, more commonly associated with feature length films, might be the primary factor as to why Canadians haven’t been flocking to the film, Polsky does touch on an interesting point about the hyper-coverage of hockey in Canada.
Expanding on his notion, could it be that this important element of hockey history examined through a unique gaze, one which doesn’t regale events such as the 1980 Miracle on Ice or the 1987 Canada Cup, is a perspective North American hockey fans are not interested in seeing?
“It was disappointing to me that in North America we forget the contribution the Soviets made to the game,” said the 35-year-old who grew up in Chicago as is the son of Ukrainian immigrants. “Instead of focusing on making the game more artful and intelligent, we focus on The Miracle (On Ice, at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics) or our own certain study, we have to do it in our way. We should take the innovations of other countries and make our game better."
To his credit, Polsky doesn’t gloss over the harsh realities that Fetisov and his fellow Red Army teamamtes faced (especially when Viktor Tikhonov became head coach in 1977) such as living in isolation, gruelling training regimens and facing intense pressure to win.
However, he counter balances these negative elements by focusing on the Soviet emphasis toward an artistic and skillful style of play which was introduced to the USSR by hockey pioneer Anatoli Tarasov.
“I think the (socialist) ideology penetrated hockey – not going through by yourself,” he said. “When you look at it logically, you got five guys on the ice, why wouldn’t you use all five guys."
Polsky became aware of this alternate approach to the game at age 13 when he joined a minor hockey team that hired a coach from the Soviet Union. He was hooked and proceeded to track down any old Soviet hockey footage he could find.
Later, after studying history and politics at Yale where also played for the varsity hockey team (mainly as a centre), he decided he would attempt to channel his passion for story telling into a film career.
Polsky had directed and/or produced several independent films prior to making Red Army.
“The way I look at Red Army is that it’s what I have always wanted to communicate in terms of what I believe in about the game that I was unable to express on the ice,” he said. “Because I wasn’t able to express it on the ice – I had a tremendous passion to get these ideas out, I had no idea it would be through film.”
When the film hit the festival circuit begining last summer, Polsky saw first-hand what kind of impact his film had on people when it kicked off the 2014 Moscow International Film Festival.
“There were 3,000 people at the Pushkin Theatre. The Russians loved it, it got a standing ovation, some people were emotional and crying,” he said. “It’s an honest story, it shows a painful past and it’s somewhat nostalgic.
"They were surprised an American told this story.”
While archival footage and interviews with the likes of Vladislav Tretiak and Bowman add to depth of the film, it is the cantankerous yet charming Fetisiov (now a Russian politician) who makes the film truly compelling.
Fetisov comes across a heroic figure, staying true to his home country and not defecting as he eventually wins his freedom from the Red Army. The Hall of Fame defenceman (Class of 2001) has an impressive resume highlighted by two Olympic gold medals (1984, 1988), seven gold medals at the IIHF World Championships as well as winning the Stanley Cup twice as a player in 1997 and 1998.
“I had no idea Slava would be the centrepiece,” said Polsky. “He could have left there in 10 minutes, he said he would be there for 15. Right away he was trying to test me to see what I was about, he suffers no fools.”
Fellow Russian and former NHL player Alexei Kovalev never played for Red Army but did grow up playing under the Soviet style in the USSR and later the CIS with Moscow Dynamo from 1989 to 1992 before joining the New York Rangers.
He agrees with the assertion that this film can provide North Americans with a unique lens to view the Soviet/Russian story.
“I think they can understand us more with this movie, who we really were and what we had to deal with,” said Kovalev, who felt his style was not welcomed at times during his NHL career in which he played 1,316 games. “No one wanted to accept my game, (they thought) if you move your feet fast, you are working hard, if he doesn’t, then he isn’t. They were not looking at the style, how you bring the puck from one zone to the other, instead they try to change you. They weren’t looking for the positive, If they accepted (our style) from the beginning there would be a lot more skill in the NHL.”
Kovalev, who lives in the greater New York area, is now training and coaching his two young boys ages 10 and 12. While they have yet to see Red Army, he wants them to.
“They are definitely going to watch it, the movie was great,” he said. “The perspective, how it was presented showed who we really are as Russians.”
Kovalev, 42, says he is currently working on trying to fund a hockey school that will employ training techniques and focus on the skill and style of his generation and their predecessors.
“We can show something about how this game can be played,” he said. ““Russian hockey, the creativity, the passing of the puck – we were looking to bring that back.”
Meanwhile, the film continues to roll out across the globe and Polsky is particularly happy with the reception in Montreal, he also hasn’t ruled out the potential of a re-release in Toronto and Vancouver.
“Everything is going well, it is just building and building and moving into different cities every weekend, he said. “I still think we have a lot of work to do to get hockey and sports fans into the theatre. In documentary film period there are like three a year that get any kind of substantial release, for a sports related film it’s even more unusual, for hockey it might be a first.”
Follow Neil Acharya on Twitter: @Neil_Acharya
