"Games of the XXI Olympiad" by directors Jean-Claude Labrecque , Jean Beaudin , Marcel Carrière & Georges Dufaux is a classic and very good 1970s documentary. It means it follows the path established by Michael Lindsay-Hogg's "Let It Be" (1970) -- the ultrarealistic, intimate, even brutal style, which flourished especially during the 1970s but somewhat disappeared later. But "Games..." is a masterpiece of the style and sports all the elements of it: a lot of close-ups, fly-on-the-wall observation method, minimal off-screen commentary, a lot of natural sound, minimal amount of off-screen music, minimal amount of self-censoring etc.
The movie is radical departure from hardcore artiness of "Visions of Eight" (the Munich olympic movie) and avoidance of cliches of classic olympic movies. It makes the film very unique. Even the slow motion is NEVER used! Only some brief special interviews and really as-less-as-possible off-screen informational comments are made (performed by classic 70s documentary film voice -- dry low baritone). Instead of them a lot of separate and even hidden camera footages are used.
The directors chose four athletes for more careful observation. Those are: Cuban sprinter Silvio Leonard, american decathlete Bruse Jenner, Soviet gymnast Nelly Kim and Hungarian pentathlete Tamás Kancsal. Reason is simple, they were all the favourites before the games. And as it turned out, 3 of them were really successfull, winning medals, two of them even golds. Three of them are very attractive and cinegenic too. Leonard is openly emotional, passionate, boyish, makes us compassionate towards him after a strange injury he gets. Jenner is powerful, good looking, talkative, easygoing and makes a really good comedic pair with his arch-rival, always silent but hilarious Mykola Avilov. Nelly Kim is extremely funny with her teenager's antics and shortcomings. Only Kancsal is almost autistic, never showing ANY emotion with his initial failures or even winning medal either. But with him are done some the most risque frames, the scenes where a nude male coach is giving a massage to naked Tamás.
But the film covers numerous other highlights of the olympics too, so no problem understanding what were the games about. Everything is done ultrarealistic way, so the movie is very close to even a time-machine. You can even imagine the smells in the events, all the emotions and mental power. Superb!
