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SATISFYING FILM Soaring music and top-notch performances raise Chariots of Fire to Olympic heights. It's refreshing to see conscience getting as much mileage as competition. The backdrop is the 1924 Paris Olympics

Chariots of Fire
DVD, Rs. 599
1981, 20th Century Fox
Directed by Hugh Hudson
Screenplay by Colin Welland
Starring Ian Charleson, Ben Cross,
John Gielgud, Ian Holmes

For an event that's been taking place for over a century now the number of movies based on the Olympic Games is surprisingly few. Every Olympiad is steeped in drama, tragedy, action and exhilaration. Chariots of Fire is a real-life account of two British athletes who won gold medals in the Paris Olympics in 1924. The film interposes events in the lives of the two runners and holds the viewer spellbound with superb photography and excellent background music (by Vangelis Papathanassiou).

It opens with the memorial service for Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), winner of the 100 m dash. Switching to the flashback mode, the film shows Abrahams facing anti-Semiticism in college. In a bid to gain acceptance, Abrahams who can "run like the wind" takes on a 700-year-old feat — the college courtyard dash — an event where the runner traverses the courtyard reckoned at 188 paces in the time that the clock strikes noon.

"Do it for Israel," taunts a heckler. "Abrahams, you swank," yells another. Though he triumphs, the undercurrent of racism remains.

Meanwhile in Scotland, Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a missionary, attracts attention with his 200 m dash. The devout man is torn between his duty towards God and his dedication to running. Liddell, running for Scotland, was pushed off the track by a French runner but got back in to win. (Apparently this was a true life incident and was later unwittingly reprised in the infamous Zola Budd-Mary Ann Decker collision.)

Liddell, pitted against Abrahams in the 100 m sprint, wins. Abrahams is devastated but with the help of a professional coach, Sam Mussabini, played by Ian Holmes (who severely frowned upon by the college authorities) fine-tunes his skills.

The filming of the athletic events at the Olympics is pure visual delight. The crowd favourites — American sprint champions Charlie Paddock, dubbed the California Cannonball, and Jackson Scholz, known as the New York Thunderbolt — are pitted against "the most powerful athletic force to leave these (England's) shores". In the sequence of events at the Paris games, the film deviates from reality. Liddell is supposedly caught unawares that the 100 m heats is on a Sunday and he won't run on the Sabbath. (In reality, he had opted out of the run almost three months before the Olympics.) He grapples with his conscience and despite efforts of his contingent's office-bearers, including the Prince of Wales, refuses to relent. A solution is found with his trading places with Lord Lindsay to run in the 400 m and the Anglo-American challenge is afoot. The American coach predicts a defeat for the Scotsman saying " rigor mortis sets in after 300 m". But Liddell is unbeatable on the day. One wonders why a religious connection between Liddell and Scholz, the American runner, is left undeveloped.

Abrahams and Liddell win their respective events. Their sprint is superbly filmed. Don't miss the sponsors' staid banners at the start and the finish. Also watch out for the catchwords motto "Citius, Altius, Fortius" used for the first time in the history of the Olympics.

D. RAVI SHANKAR

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