Race: This one is an achiever

Race

Cast : Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Eli Goree, Shanice Banton

Rated: 8/10

In those 10 seconds, it is not about Black or White. It is only about fast or slow,” Jesse Owens says. But the era in which he competed as an athlete at the highest level was only about Black and White. America was entirely racist and so was the rest of the world. And yet, a Black man from the Bronx did the impossible. This story of achievement could not have been better told than through this brilliant movie by Stephen Hopkins, restraint at all levels being its most major feat.

When Jesse Owens ran the track, the World War II was impending, thanks to Hitler’s pogrom. The Berlin Olympics were in doldrums with the American Olympic Association largely wanting to boycott the games in protest against Hitler’s anti-semitic policies.

Back home on home turf too, the problem was that America’s best athlete — Owens — was Black, and a largely racist America was queasy about that too. In fact, so racist that despite the fact that Jesse Owens created a record by taking four Gold medals at the Berlin Games, he was never acknowledged by the White House till 10 years after his death in 1980. That’s when he got an American Hero Award posthumously for holding a record that none in the world could break for 25 years after the Berlin Olympics.

A film on such true events of racism and grit in the face of all odds, cannot but be good. It’s another matter that director Hopkins has used his acumen to depict the complex undertones of colour issues, political chicanery and Nazi high-handedness on one side and the pure spirit of sport on the other, and married the two together seamlessly.

Those times were complex and in between races and their preps, Hopkins skillfully shows up the simmering political games, the frozen face of Nazi regime, the Jew issues, the Black problems and all the niggles Owens face off the track, like the Black community asking him to boycott the Berlin Games in solidarity with the Black people.

Stephan James as Jesse gives a great performance, bringing out all the nuances of Owen’s frustration, his determination, his doubts and his searing pace with incredible restraint.

Biopics make for engaging viewing and this one is no different. In an ode to Owens, it sports incredible pace despite being slow and somewhat silent on what really powered Owens’ track dreams or why, at all, he got on to the tracks in the first place — all the way from Cleveland to Ohio. 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 13 March, 2016