Legend No. 17

As a child Valeri Kharlamov falls ill along with his Spanish born mother and the doctors forbid him sport. He plays ice hockey anyway. He is taken into the country's best club young, then sent to the provinces, and there he learns to play. The coach Tarasov calls him back. He joins the national team. In 1972 the team plays a series against Canada; the best of the two countries had never met until then, and the first game is played in Montreal. Nikolay Lebedev directs. Danila Kozlovsky plays Kharlamov and Oleg Menshikov plays Tarasov. It is a Russian production. The film was a large commercial success in Russia and among the most watched domestic productions of the period. The man at its centre is real: Kharlamov was among the best known players in Soviet hockey and died young in a road accident. The matter it treats is the relationship between coach and player; Tarasov is shown as a hard trainer and the narrative does not soften it. The game scenes were shot well technically and the method of filming on the ice is what stands out. Its historical approach was argued over; some events were changed and the political pressure of the period is shown only sparingly. The film ends at the first game and the later years stay outside the narrative. Who it is for: anyone curious about sports biography and mainstream Russian cinema. Who it is not for: the register is heroic, the historical detail is selected, and the emotional register is high.