What it's like to be the world's number one villain, and this Oscar-best documentary is Putin's nightmare

Aletha 2022-10-26 17:45:04

In an interview, Putin answered a very interesting question:


Solovyov: What is it like to be the number one villain in the world?

Putin smiled and replied: You can ask those bad guys.

So the question is, who is the "bad guy"? !


"Icarus," which recently won an Oscar for best feature documentary, has an ambiguous, and puzzling, answer.


The film was a big upset at the Oscars, squeezing out many more vocal films, and won the Oscar for Best Documentary in one fell swoop.


If you only read the brief introduction, you will feel that Oscar is deliberate, with obvious intentions, and full of pertinence,


but if you watch the full film patiently, you will fall into contemplation, be swallowed by the vortex of doubt, and the three views will be completely refreshed.

I have to say that as a documentary, "Icarus" is very enjoyable to watch, and has an excellent story and a strong sense of conflict.


The film can be divided into three obvious parts,

which can be compared separately: learning, understanding, and acceptance;

the main body is from the individual to the country, and finally all over the world, and

finally the entire sports world, the sacred Olympic Games, are not spared.

The first part of the film tells the magical experience of cyclist Brian Fogel. As the film's director and starring, Brian Fogel is just an ordinary person with mediocre talent who has entered the end of his career as an athlete.


His idol, cycling world star Armstrong, has been exposed to long-term doping, and has not been detected by anti-doping agencies for decades.


The altar has collapsed and his beliefs have been shattered. Brian Fogel, hoping to overtake in a corner, has gone astray, and is ready to seek drugs to improve his performance, just like Armstrong.


There is a famous saying in the sports world: what is found

out is called doping, and what cannot be found is called high-tech.


Brian Fogel went to Russia and found Grigory Rodchenkov, director of the Moscow Olympic Laboratory.

The tip of the iceberg slowly opened, and huge secrets began to surface.

Brian Fogel accepted the help of Grigory Rodchenkov and began to inject drugs regularly, and at his suggestion, he used fake urine for testing, and avoided anti-doping Organised reconnaissance.

During their brief relationship, Brian Fogel saw an unknown side of the Moscow Olympic laboratory.

Finally, Brian Fogel participated in the competition, but because of his mediocre qualifications and the torture of his conscience about using drugs, he finally only ranked out of 20 and ended his dream journey early.

Ordinary people, even if they use drugs, still can't get excellent grades, just life.

When the personal chapter ends, the second act of the film begins to accelerate, and the perspective suddenly shifts from the individual to the national level.

The pressure came from a new round of thorough investigation started by the anti-doping organization. Grigory Rodchenkov, who was at the peak of his life, resigned under pressure and was followed by the security personnel of the authorities throughout the process.


Grigory Rodchenkov felt that something was wrong and he might be a scapegoat for high-level power, so he fled to the United States with all the information. In order to protect himself, he announced the doping scandal that shocked the world.


So, the whole sports world, the whole world is fried!

The second act of "Icarus" is very cleverly edited. One side is the confrontation between the individual and the state. In the United States, Grigory Rodchenkov used the media to hype it up, hoping to get the protection of the Western world. He did not hesitate to put Russia Doping scandals at the Olympic Games have been turned upside down.


Of the 73 medals Russia won at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, 30 were for drugs; more than half of the 81 medals Russia won at the London Olympics in 2012 were for drugs.

Behind every gold medal there is doping.

Moreover, the mechanism for giving drugs to athletes comes from high-level decision-making, which is equivalent to a national secret system.


What is even more terrifying is that in order to win all-round victory in his own home, in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics held in Russia, the Moscow Olympic Laboratory actually deceived the International Anti-Doping Organization under the protection of the KGB, and secretly changed it. Urine test records of all Russian athletes, bleaching their sins.


In the end, Russia shined in Sochi, and the whole country celebrated.

Putin's approval rating skyrocketed, and he launched a tough foreign war.

Based on multiple evidences, it can almost be concluded that a large number of Russian athletes are unclean, but with political mediation, Russia successfully participated in the next Rio Olympics.


Learn, understand, and finally accept.


The three stages of this return to the world come from the classic book George Orwell's "1984". In the second act, the content of the book is used extensively for intertextuality. Grigory Rodchenkov, who is under great pressure, almost Do not leave the book, and regard it as the new Bible.

"1984" tells the story of a hypothetical future society where dictators continue to put pressure on the subordinates for the highest goal of power, human nature is completely stifled by power, freedom is completely deprived, ideas are strictly controlled, and the lives of the lower classes become monotonous tedious loop.

As a timeless classic of dystopia, "1984" is too appropriate for "Icarus".


In the pursuit of fair sports, why is it based on results and the number of gold medals to win or lose? Why do sports competitions maintain an ambiguous and important relationship with political power, and why does Grigory Rodchenkov's freedom and humanity flicker in the film?

In fact, after watching the second act of the film and comparing it with "1984", you can get a clear answer.

The third act of the film is the tragic acceptance stage. After the exposure, the Russian authorities

denied everything and successfully participated in the next Olympics ; Rodchenkov became the Snowden of Russian sports, Grigory Rodchenkov cut ties with his family, accepted the US witness protection program, and since then lost his true freedom, and in the end he can only let him enter history lies become truth. The third act of "Icarus" is tragic, tragic, and chilling. Under power, fair sports have long lost their original role, and the Olympic spirit has been tarnished again and again, higher, faster Below is nothing but a commercial act, a power conspiracy.












When the Russian government chose "ignorance is power", Grigory Rodchenkov told all the "knowledge", that is, the truth, that should be published through the film.

Is Grigory Rodchenkov a hero? Is it a scapegoat? innocent?

The film is called "Icarus", and Icarus is a character in Greek mythology. When he escaped from Crete with wings made of wax and feathers, he flew too high and the wax on his wings was melted by the sun. In the end, he fell into the water and died, and was buried on a lonely island.

Grigory Rodchenkov uses high technology to help Russian athletes improve their performance, make them run faster, jump higher and fight harder,

but the truth is like a hot sun, and his lies are that Baked wax, he and those athletes will be tortured by lies for life, tortured by the truth, and finally lost their freedom, words, and everything alone on the island.


"Icarus" deconstructed the so-called reality for us, and made power appear, but in the end, it was unable to resist the conspiracy of power and the call of interests.

What is fairness,

the world is not fair at all.


Learn, understand, accept.

Find out what's going on, understand the key points, accept it calmly, and make changes within a limited range.

Not only sports, but life is also like this.

The dragon and the phoenix are born. The more highly developed a society is, the more stratified divisions become, and the mobility across stratum becomes slow and difficult.

A child in the countryside may earn tens of millions of assets

in a lifetime, but some urban children inherit tens of millions of assets at birth,

and this gap will likely permanently fix their social position and continue to their next generation. generation.

Destiny has been written long ago. Many people have only one chance to change their fate in their life. If they miss it, they are doomed to failure.

However, some people can spend decades of trial and error, and they can make progress and achieve great success when they seize an opportunity.

In the sports world, acquiescence to the existence of doping violates fairness;

In society, the loss of acquiescence in mobility treats fairness as chicken soup.

We can only accept it and try to live a purer, more exciting and more worthy life within a limited range.

View more about Icarus reviews

Extended Reading

Icarus quotes

  • Grigory Rodchenkov: Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involves the use of doublethink. I was doing in parallel two things which cancelled out each other and being fully contradictory. Doping and anti-doping.

  • Grigory Rodchenkov: He wrote book. It is dangerous to write book in Russia.