David O'ConnellMIFF 2011: Fire in Babylon
August 4th 2011 00:53
Time for an admission before I tackle Stevan Riley’s documentary, Fire in Babylon. As an Australian youngster, I had a secret shame that only a few people knew about outside my family: I was absolutely crazy about the West Indies cricket team. Like any kid growing up in this country, faithfully indoctrinated into the winter/summer cycle of football and cricket culture, I grew up with a bat and ball always close at hand. But when it came to what actually took place out on the pitch in the fearsome war between willow and leather, my allegiances were never with the locals but rather the Calypso Kings.
Their skill, flair and daring was a thing of immaculate beauty to me. Maybe part of it was just being intoxicated by overwhelming success too – something that was virtually guaranteed from the late 1970’s onwards. The declining Australian side of the time was plagued by mediocrity and dull personalities. They had nothing to compare with the sight of Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge or Desmond Haynes in full flight or the unceasing barrage of fast bowlers offered by the Windies, from Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner to the many who replaced them in the summers that followed.
These guys were my heroes and my fascination with the Caribbean flowed into other pursuits. I craved to know more about this part of the world; I studied the various island nations on maps, memorising the names of their cities and towns. I watched The Harder They Come regularly, sought out calypso music and even joined the Eddy ‘Electric Avenue’ Grant fan club. Receiving mail from Barbados with stamps from the region was a massive thrill; naturally I saved them for posterity as if they were rare artefacts from an alien culture.
With all this flushed out into the open, it’s clear that I’m not really capable of providing an entirely objective take on this documentary. In fact, I know I can’t. I do have one massive problem with it however: it’s too damn short! At a measly 82 minutes it feels like it's only scraping the surface of a truly golden era of sporting achievement.
It begins with a brief historical contextualisation, referring back to the plight of a succession of downtrodden West Indies teams who were regularly slaughtered. This tradition of losing came to a head in 1975 when the Windies were soundly trounced, and badly intimidated in the process, by the Australian team of 1975 which featured Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson at the peak of their powers.
Ironically, though slaughtered, this young West Indies team was beginning to put the final touches on the group of players who would alter the destiny of their combined nations, bringing them all together under a combined banner that symbolised a new awakening for the impoverished people of the region. Under new captain Clive Lloyd the Windies determined to forge their own path, to reclaim their pride and finally begin to erode “the prejudices of Babylon”. One of world sports most immortal teams was on the verge of taking their first steps to greatness.
Within a year they had found a winning formula, terrorising opposition with a fast bowling attack that reduced the Poms to whining babies calling for the introduction of new laws to impede the Windies’ assaults – an aggression never previously glimpsed in what the Poms still deluded themselves into believing was a quaint, gentlemanly game for podgy middle aged men. A notorious racial slur from then English captain Tony Greig, bragging about how he and his team would “make them grovel” would famously backfire.
Fire in Babylon (2010) ends with the Windies’ ultimate humiliation of their former colonial masters on English turf with the notorious 5-0 'Blackwash' of 1984. But this was only the beginning of an extended period of dominance that would continue for another decade. The team, despite alterations in personnel, would leave many more ‘Blackwashes’ in their wake.
Michael Holding alludes to this mind-blowing streak that saw the team remain unbeaten in a test series for 15 years but I wanted to hear more from the generation of greats who sustained the standards set by Richards, Greenidge, Lloyd and co, and continued this legacy - guys like Courtney Walsh, Richie Richardson, Curtley Ambrose and Brian Lara who sadly emerged in a time of transition as the team was finally starting to come back to the pack.
This brought back many, many memories from a childhood when so little else mattered and the heat of summer conjured up memories of days in front of the TV watching cricket and counting down to the next visit from the sportsmen I most revered in the world. Fire in Babylon won’t be for everyone but from a personal perspective I could have watched another 3 hours of this.
As well as being part of The Melbourne International Film Festival, Fire in Babylon will also be screening at Melbourne's ACMI cinemas for a special season later this year from September 15 to October 5. There will also be special advanced screenings on August 26 at which guest and all round legend of the game, Michael Holding, will be introducing the film and conducting a Q and A afterwards. Full details can be found at the ACMI website HERE.
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