This is an extremely heart-felt and powerful documentary not only on basketball and the country of Lithuania, but also about freedom, national pride, and the human spirit.
I had no idea, before viewing this movie, that basketball is the #1 sport in Lithuania, and has been so for many decades. However, when the nation fell under the yoke of the Soviet Union's Iron Curtain, in 1940, Lithuania basketball players were forced to compete as Russians on the world stage.
At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the United States had been 84-1 in Olympic competition, but the Soviet team defeated them. Four of the starting five players on that team were from Lithuania, including Arvydas Sabonis and Sarunus Marciulionis, who are featured mainly in the film, and who went on eventually to play in the NBA.
One highlight of the documentary was film footage of the Lithuanian Declaration of Independence, in January 1991, after the Berlin Wall had come down and after Mikhail Gorbachev's announcement of "perestroika". However, Gorbachev would not accept their independence and sent in tanks and troops leading to bloodshed. When Lithuanians came out en masse to protest and resist, and pressure was applied from the West, Russia backed down and withdrew leading to Lithuania becoming independent after all.
This lead to their appearance, in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics, as a basketball team that could compete under their own country's banner. Since the nation was essentially bankrupt a most unusual funding relationship developed between the musical band "The Grateful Dead" and the Lithuanian basketball team, which included wild and colorful tie-dye T-shirts.
This helped the team to compete at the Olympics, but it was also the year of U.S. Dream Team, the greatest assemblage of basketball players ever, including such notables as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley etc. etc. The Lithuanians and the Americans were in the same bracket, with both teams sweeping through their preliminary games, to meet in the semi-finals where the U.S. just overwhelmed the Lithuanians (and went on to win the Gold Medal over Croatia).
The story doesn't end there though, as the Lithuanians would now play their bitter rivals the Russians (as the Unified Team) for the bronze medal. The Lithuanians defeated the Russians in a game with enormous political as well as sports implications. This set off a tremendous wave of national pride throughout Lithuania, that they could compete and win under their own flag finally.
All in all, this heart-felt documentary had me engrossed from start to finish and I felt it was extremely well presented, by producer and director Marius Markevicius. It's one of the best documentaries I've seen in recent years.
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