From the delightfully surreal W.C. Fields vehicle “Million Dollar Legs” to the intense drama of “Personal Best” to any number of inspirational biopics, the Olympic Games have long been a popular backdrop for filmmakers. That said, I don’t know if I have seen a film on the subject quite like “Agon,” the debut feature from Italian filmmaker Giulio Bertelli. Here is a film that eschews all the usual sports-movie clichés in its portrait of three highly trained athletes and the obstacles, both physical and psychological, they must face in the run-up to the games. While the results may not leave audiences with the kind of uplift seen in films like “Chariots of Fire” or “Cool Runnings,” they offer a more realistic depiction of what contemporary athletes must endure in their hopes of scoring on the world stage.
Set during the last few weeks leading up to the 2024 Summer Games in Ludoj (both the games and the locale are fictional), the film follows three female athletes representing Italy as they compete in commodified events, from acts of violence and brutality to just another sport. Alice (Alice Bellandi) is a top champion in Judo who suffers a brutal knee injury during a training session; unwilling to simply sit on the sidelines and wait for four years in the hope of making it into the next games, she goes about an incredibly compressed rehab period in the hopes of healing her knee enough to be able to compete. This covers everything from arthroscopic surgery (which we see in detail during the opening credits) to researching more outré forms of treatment to a still-punishing conditioning regimen, all the while haunted by what she will do if she is unable to compete.
On the other hand, fencer Giovanna (Yile Yara Vianello) seems poised and confident as she heads into competition, with her only concern being the new ways her event is being timed and scored. All of that confidence and single-minded focus disappears after an early competitive match goes horribly wrong—although she seems outwardly cool at first, the emotional devastation she feels is enough to make her wonder whether she can ever compete again.
These two women face physical or psychological hurdles that were not necessarily their fault, but rather the inevitable hazards of their respective pursuits. In the case of sharpshooter Alex (Sofija Zobina), her problems are far more contemporary in nature. Having managed to merge her talents with a rifle with her obvious beauty and charisma, she has become a phenomenon on social media. To that end, she’s poised to help take the sport to a new and more commercial level—one that plays down its more violent associations—and make herself a superstar in the process via lucrative endorsement deals. Unfortunately for her, a video of her participating in an illegal wolf hunt has just hit the internet, and now the pressure to succeed in her event is compounded by the need to contain the situation amid appalled public opinion. What’s more, sponsors are leery of investing their time and money in someone who now represents everything they have been trying to avoid regarding rifle use.
As the three narratives unfold, Bertelli explores both the incredible pressures that these three athletes are working under in their attempts at victory and how, for all of the advances in their individual sports (which at times almost look like science fiction), they are still subject to the kind of basic risks that no amount of technological progress can fully eliminate. To say nothing of new ones that athletes a century ago could never have imagined.
He also quietly, but effectively, illustrates how these athletes are increasingly seen as mere cogs in an enormously profitable industry, one content to use them for their incredible skills and then kick them aside when they are no longer of value. (To accentuate the idea, Bertelli also weaves in footage of such essentials as bullets and chain-mail masks being cranked out in seemingly mass-produced perfection that still has the potential to fail at the most important of moments.)
“Agon” blends fact and fiction throughout, never more cleverly than in the narrative involving Alice and her struggles with rehab. Unlike the other two narratives, where the main characters are played by actresses, Alice Bellandi is a genuine judo champion who indeed won the gold medal at the actual 2024 Olympics in Paris. Her storyline has the most documentary-like feel of the three, and a lot of that is due to her presence. Even though the film may not exactly depict her own experiences, she lends a sense of authenticity to the proceedings that is noticeable even if you don’t go in knowing who she really is. It evokes when Robert Towne cast real-life track star Patrice Donnelly to play one in “Personal Best,” his 1982 drama about athletes preparing for the Olympics, and she wound up stealing the film from her professional co-stars. This is not to criticize Vianello or Zobina, who are both good here. But when you compare their efforts to what Bellandi evokes by her presence alone, they cannot help but seem a little more forced and actorly.
Although “Agon” may not win over those expecting a straightforward sports film narrative (and I suspect members of the IOC will be less than thrilled with it as a whole), those in the mood for something that goes beyond the usual cliches to present something new may find it of interest. With the exception of curling and women’s soccer, I have no burning interest in the Olympics in general, but I found it compelling for its depiction of the mechanics of the current athletic scene and the triumphs and tragedies that occur along the way. It may not leave you cheering in the end, but it will give you something to think about the next time the Olympics come around.
