Icarus

All great documentaries benefit as much from the unexpected ways events unfold over the course of their production as they do from the skill and vision of the filmmaking team. But Bryan Fogel’s Icarus is one of those amazing examples of a small doc with a narrow focus that blows up into a picture that touches on many of the most vital issues of the day. Fogel, an amateur cyclist, was one of many fans of the sport who watched intently as his personal hero, multiple Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, was finally outted (and ousted) for using performance-enhancing drugs. He figured that if the flagrant doping of the most prominent professional cyclist had not been detected during hundreds of tests administered over more than a decade of competitive racing, the problem was far from solved just because of Armstrong’s admission.  As an experiment, Fogel decided to see if an amateur could get away with doping himself and still pass the rigorous testing program. He pitched this Morgan Spurlock style documentary to some experienced producers and financial backers, and he was literally off to the races.

When official US anti-doping experts are reluctant to help Fogel in his attempt to expose the tremendous holes in the testing systems, he gets in touch with the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, an eccentric scientist named Grigory Rodchenkov.  Eager to help Fogel and seemingly fearless of the Russian government, Rodchenkov dives into the project, and a friendship forms between the two men.

At this point the production of Icarus took a dramatic turn, from a kind of Supersize Me style exposé of performance-enhancing drugs, to a real-world political thriller that had profound consequences for international relations, the world of professional sports, and the reputations and lives of the individuals involved.

The film, for the most part, conveys this fascinating adventure with edge-of-your-seat excitement. Not everything gets explained.  But by the movie’s end we've gained some understanding of how the greatest fraud in Olympic history was perpetrated, to the direct ways victory sports begets victories in politics, to the all too timely matter of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s objectives, tactics and determination. Icarus is a prime example of how real-time documentary filmmaking can be the most direct and insightful way to understand a complicated issue.