Now that Sundance is underway and Oscar nominations have been revealed, time to look at a small movie gem that recently played at the Palm Springs International Film Festival based on the life of one of the all-time great distance runners.
With memories of the Italian army invading Ethiopia in WWII still smoldering, in a symbolic bit of irony, an unknown, barefooted Ethiopian man stuns the world by winning Olympic gold in the marathon on the streets of Rome in 1960. Overnight, Abebe Bikila becomes a sports legend. As the first black African to win a gold medal he becomes a hero not only in his own country, but to the entire continent.
Four years later in Tokyo and just five weeks removed from an appendicitis operation, Bikila is the first person in history to win consecutive Olympic gold medals in the marathon.
In 1968, leading the marathon despite running with a broken foot at the Olympics in Mexico City, Bikila is forced to retire as the pain becomes unbearable. But even the eventual winner states that if Abebe was not injured, he would have won an amazing third straight Olympic marathon gold medal.
What makes this a compelling story is how the soldier and quiet son of a shepherd faces the tragedies that would befall him.
One evening in 1969, while returning to his home in Addis Ababa from training in the Ethiopian countryside in his plan to race in the 1972 Munich Olympics (despite critics saying he’ll be too old), Bikila is involved in a tragic car accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down.
Unable to walk and faced with the greatest challenge of his life, he struggles to maintain his will to live but in the process discovers a deeper meaning of competition, taking up archery for the Paralympics and competing as a handicapped dog sledder in Norway. Though Bikila’s running career had come to a tragic end, the race of his life had a new beginning taking him to places he could never have imagined.
Mixing drama and documentary footage this small, well-crafted picture by Davey Frankel that includes some terrific cinematography of the African countryside, is a collaboration with Rasselas Lakew, who in addition to co-writing and co-directing this film, also plays the lead.
Long overdue for a cinematic telling, the brilliant athlete’s tenacity, resiliency and remarkable spirit, who faced tragedy as serenely as victory, is indeed an inspirational story.
