At the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, 29-year-old Czech runner Emil Zátopek achieved the seemingly impossible, winning three gold medals in the 5,000-meter, 10,000-meter and (following an unexpected last-minute entry) marathon races: a hat-trick that remains unmatched. He’d already won two medals at the previous Olympics, and repeatedly broken his own speed records in assorted categories. Two years later, he broke the 29-minute barrier in the 10,000 meters.
Most of these achievements are dramatized, in suitably hearty and rousing form, in director David Ondříček’s polished, engaging biopic “Zátopek,” and certainly, it’s a life that could forgivably merit the most bombastically flattering sort of sports-drama treatment. Yet the emotional peaks in Ondříček’s film lie, unexpectedly, elsewhere. Ambitiously attempting both an interior character study as well as a broad historical overview, “Zátopek” appears to sincerely grasp the soul of a man for whom winning wasn’t everything, even if he always won.
Most of these achievements are dramatized, in suitably hearty and rousing form, in director David Ondříček’s polished, engaging biopic “Zátopek,” and certainly, it’s a life that could forgivably merit the most bombastically flattering sort of sports-drama treatment. Yet the emotional peaks in Ondříček’s film lie, unexpectedly, elsewhere. Ambitiously attempting both an interior character study as well as a broad historical overview, “Zátopek” appears to sincerely grasp the soul of a man for whom winning wasn’t everything, even if he always won.
- 8/25/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
David Ondricek’s epic account of Olympic gold medalist and multiple record holder Emil Zatopek, who attained legendary status in the darkest days of the Czechoslovak communist regime, makes for a powerful opening film at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
The director of “Whisper” and “In the Shadow,” who co-wrote the biopic with Alice Nellis and Jan P. Muchow, says the ambitious shoot, with detailed period depictions of five Olympic competitions for the star runner and the role of his gold medalist wife Dana, took 14 years to materialize and presented the challenge of capturing the gut-wrenching conflicts of a champion’s life under a system that forced upon him the role of socialist success symbol.
What was it about the life of Zatopek that drove your ideas while developing this story and how did you feel you finally found a way to crack the story?
It’s nearly...
The director of “Whisper” and “In the Shadow,” who co-wrote the biopic with Alice Nellis and Jan P. Muchow, says the ambitious shoot, with detailed period depictions of five Olympic competitions for the star runner and the role of his gold medalist wife Dana, took 14 years to materialize and presented the challenge of capturing the gut-wrenching conflicts of a champion’s life under a system that forced upon him the role of socialist success symbol.
What was it about the life of Zatopek that drove your ideas while developing this story and how did you feel you finally found a way to crack the story?
It’s nearly...
- 8/21/2021
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
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