After some consideration, Dave Adlard decided to screen the critically acclaimed, Academy Award nominated film White Palms at Region 2 (R2R) Congress in Spokane. None of us had seen the movie before the Saturday night social.
Reviews were … mixed.
Friends of mine said, “I don’t like the movie. It’s too dark. Too harsh. It has no ending.â€
There is a fair bit of profanity making it unsuitable for children. Fact is, profanity was common in Hungarian gyms and may still be today. (Using a fencing foil for discipline was not common, I hasten to add.)
Other coaches, myself included, liked the movie very much.
It’s a film produced on a low budget starring a friend of mine “Uldi†Zoltan Miklos Hajdu and features Canadian gymnasts Orion Radies, Silas Radies and Olympic Floor Champion Kyle Shewfelt.
The disclaimer is that the movie was “inspired by real eventsâ€. Dongo (Uldi) did not actually qualify for Worlds. Did not compete against Kyle in the finals on Vault at World Championships. (I did like the fact that Kyle finished ahead of Dragalescu on Vault, correcting the mistake made by judges in Athens 2004 Vault finals.)
The film deliberately made my home gym, Altadore Gymnastics, look bad. And my city, Calgary, look bleak.
I guess that’s cinéma-vérité. The hand-held camera work is unsettling.
So far as I know, there were no professional actors in the movie. I particularly liked Jerry Gibbons who played a parallel role to actual Altadore Head Coach at the time, Kelly Manjak.
Though the film is about gymnasts, there is surprisingly little gymnastics in it.
This movie trailer is in Hungarian, though the film itself is Hungarian and English with English subtitles. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Details on purchasing the DVD – $28.
Related:
Gymnastics Coaching.com 