Dir: Stevan Riley, UK, 2010, 87 mins
Cast: Viv Richards, Michael Holding, Clive Lloyd, Joel Garner, Colin Croft
Review by Mark Byrnes
For some people cricket is a bit like Marmite: you either love it or you just don’t understand its appeal. But as the new sports documentary, Fire in Babylon shows, cricket was once much more than a sport; it was a force for political change.
Historically viewed as crowd-pleasing underachievers, the West Indies cricket team had never lived up to their potential. The catalyst for change was their 1975-76 tour of Australia, where a punishing series defeat by their hosts saw captain Clive Lloyd vow to never again experience such humiliation. The film follows the team’s transformation into undisputed world champions, beginning in 1975 and climaxing with the infamous ‘Black Wash’ defeat of England in 1984.
Breaking with tradition, Lloyd modelled his side around a core fast bowling attack – dubbed ‘the four horsemen of the apocalypse’ – allied with the fearless batting of their young talisman, Viv Richards. A crushing series victory over England in 1976 delivered a statement of intent. With political unrest and racial tensions intensifying both in the UK and overseas, success on the field began to be seen as a mark of collective black pride. Events reached a zenith in 1982 where a split in the team saw Viv Richards and others refuse a blank cheque to play in South Africa, later earning the gratitude of Nelson Mandela.
Unlike other more objective examples within the documentary genre, Fire in Babylon makes no apologies for its biased stance. Echoing the boxing documentary, When We Were Kings, the film delivers a good guy/bad guy narrative, where the forces of racial oppression are overcome on the cricket field by their former colonial subjects and given a good bruising in the process. A reggae soundtrack underscores footage of batsman being hit by 90 mph balls alongside news footage of protests in Apartheid era South Africa. Given its short running time the film resembles a snapshot of the era, but to writer/director Stevan Riley’s credit, it is a flavoursome one. Punctuated with present day interludes of local West Indian musicians singing of the exploits of their cricketing heroes, the players themselves recall their own part in history.
Arguably cricket fans will not learn a great deal from this film and may even have an axe to grind about some of the historical liberties that the film takes. But ultimately this is a story with universal appeal of how humble people overcame adversity both on and off the field to achieve incredible sporting success – the West Indies would remain unbeaten for a 15 year spell. As Michael Holding (one of the ‘four horsemen’) said in a recent interview, everyone knows about The Ashes in England, but the story of the West Indies cricket team is not so well known. This is something that the film will help to address.
In an age where the crass commercialisation of sport is frequently bemoaned, Fire in Babylon reminds us all that real heroes once emerged from the field of sport, touching the lives of ordinary people around the world in the process.
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