Fire in Babylon
Fire in Babylon is the latest documentary on http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 cricket that evolved from being the ‘also-rans’ in the early 1970’s to the ‘formidable giants’ a few years later.
It’s set at a time that saw an eruption of culture from the West Indian Islands, where cricket was the only thing that managed to unify cultures collectively.
If we look back at the 70’s there was a cultural crisis, Apartheid was rampant in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 and Western society was divided along racial lines.
Unlike many other cricket documentaries this one does not try to encompass the entire duration of West Indian cricket but rather picks up an era and focuses on it. Well articulated by one cricket fanatic, who wrote that this documentary “is essentially
a love letter to the great West Indies team of the 70’s and 80’s”.
The West Indian cricketers were not merely sportsmen. They transformed into cultural icons that symbolically fought the oppression of the West.
This tale is depicted with uncanny romanticism as the West Indian point of view is vividly elucidated by the Director Stevan http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Joel-Garner-c67141 and
others, who form part of the oration, this documentary is such that it has a certain universal appeal to it.
It is not a discussion unlike some legends of cricket documentaries that focus merely on establishing the credentials of a certain player, but rather a celebration and a glorification of the overpowering West Indians, who stood tall on the field and enthralled
the fans with their exceptional exuberance.
Unfortunately, many cricket documentaries hold resemblance to cricket books that are known for their monotony and therefore are not worth your time. However, Fire in Babylon is an exception. It is made stylistically with a catchy soundtrack and glimpses
of Rodney Hogg taking a go at Viv Richards.
It is a similar to a West Indian love story narrated with an unmistakable Caribbean flair.
It is refreshing to see a cricket documentary that does not have Richie Benaud in it, for the entirety of its 83 minutes. That in itself is an achievement. It recounts incidents of racial slurs directed at the West Indian team by the Australian crowd, racial
profiling by the English media, along with the Indians giving up an entire Test match so that they didn’t get beat up by the likes of Roberts, Garner and Holding.
It is also somewhat strange to see a documentary that has depicted West Indian cricket in its full glory, yet there is very little shown of Sir Gary Sobers. Malcom http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Marshall-c74817 also misses out on all the action as the documentary does not look beyond 1984 and
stops there.
As http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 was evolving into a multicultural hub, England was struggling with racism back home.
This documentary shows how the Nubian gods crushed almost every team on the planet against the backdrop of Apartheid and deep rooted prejudice against the black community. West Indian dominance on the cricket field did end up upsetting quite a few people.
You will not capture many experts giving their rusty, monotonous view, but rather, the players and a few Caribbean celebrities take complete charge to tell the details.
It shows how one man (Clive Lloyd) took a bunch of young boys and turned them into the most destructive cricket team in history. Against the catchy soundtrack it shows scores of bouncers and lightening fast deliveries that broke quite a few jaws,
resulted in shaky legs and relocated a few testicles. It shows Viv Richards unravelling his brute force, it shows how these few men proved the critics wrong, who quite often portrayed them as them as nothing more than calypso good time boys.
However, it does have a few flaws as well. It somehow does not show much of Frank Worrel and Wes Hall, or white captains or George Headley. However, this documentary is captured with complete honesty and does not mislead the audience into thinking that this
is a documentary that is attempting to establish their supremacy.
It is simply an emotional account of why the cricket fans loved the West Indian cricket of the 70’s and 80’s. In fact this could well be crickets answer to 'When we were kings'. It might have lacked a few things if compared to the movie on Mohammad
Ali, however, nonetheless it rates as a top class cricket documentary where emotion is palpable.
The cinematic trailer for Fire of Babylon can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbJsy9MgFVw&feature=player_embedded%23%21
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