Freedom's Fury

It's film festival time in Wellington and they have one called 'Freedom's Fury which follows the 1956 Hungarian Olympic Water Polo team through their build-up years and on to the gold medal. Executive produers include Quentin Tarantino and Lucy Lui so, even though it's a documentary, it's no slouch, in fact it's really good. At that time Hungary was occupied by the Soviet Union and during the weeks leading up to the Games it became the first Soviet 'satellite' country to rebel, culminating in the Hungarian Uprising. Unfortunately, the uprising failed after Moscow sent in over 2,000 tanks to quell the 'freedom fighters'. According to the narration that's the same number Hitler used to occupy and subdue France in 1939, one of the strongest nations.

Water polo is the national game in Hungary and the core of the film centers on the Olympic semi-final between Hungary and the Soviet Union - the bloodiest team game ever played at the Olympics. At one point each of the seven players on both sides were involved in one-on-ones with the oppositon, the crowd rioted and stormed the poolside. The captain, Ervin Zador (pictured), was attacked towards the end of the match and had to miss the next day's final.

After the Games many of the team defected rather than return to Hungary. Zador went to California where he became a swim coach and coached a young boy called Mark Spitz between the ages of 11 and 12. The documentary narration is done by Spitz and he makes a good job of it.

Sometimes there's more to sport than 'just' sport. In the immortal words of Bill Shankley, "Some people think [sport's] about life and death. It's much more important than that."