[Review] Icarus: A Documentary That Plays Like a Thriller!!

I've never been a sports enthusiast, so I didn't know much about the global Russian doping scandal that made headlines in recent years. Fortunately, after watching Netflix's latest documentary, Icarus, I was finally able to gain a deeper understanding of the event. As for the quality of the documentary itself, while I found some of its segments incredibly tense and compelling to watch, the overall narrative had quite a few rough edges that affected the documentary's standard.

The first part of Icarus begins with the famous cyclist Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France (which also reminded me of an earlier mockumentary, The Armstrong Lie), gradually leading into the theme of doping. This segment spends nearly an hour detailing director and interviewer Bryan Fogel's experience participating in a high-altitude cycling race, as well as his reasons and process for deciding to use performance-enhancing drugs. This section seems to have little to do with the documentary's true subject matter; its purpose appears to be solely to introduce the main theme and the key figure in the events, Grigory Rodchenkov. Therefore, after watching the entire film, audiences might find this part dispensable and out of place with the rest of the documentary.

The first part of the documentary elaborates on Bryan Fogel's determination to seek Grigory Rodchenkov's help, to use banned substances to enhance his physical capabilities, and to follow Grigory's instructions to evade drug tests. In this section, the director gradually introduces Grigory's background and contradictions, allowing the audience to better understand Grigory's personality and to make the character more three-dimensional. At the same time, it seems the director intended to dramatize Bryan's process of using drugs and evading tests, making it appear more tense and exciting. However, this section fails to help the audience understand Grigory's methods for evading drug tests, making it seem as if Bryan was simply following Grigory's instructions, thus failing to create a truly tense atmosphere.

The documentary's title, Icarus, is itself a reference to the Greek mythological figure, symbolizing a person's excessive ambition in pursuing an ideal, which ultimately leads to an inverted outcome. This seems to hint at the Russian authorities' excessive ambition in using banned substances to increase their athletes' chances of winning, which ultimately led to the Russian sports world plunging into crisis after the scandal broke. However, after watching the entire documentary, I found that "Icarus" more accurately describes director Bryan Fogel's own excessive ambition. He originally intended to tell many different things through this documentary, but this resulted in a lack of focus, making the overall structure of the documentary appear somewhat scattered.

Fortunately, the middle part of the film is incredibly tightly paced. Grigory Rodchenkov's escape plays out like a thriller. From the moment the scandal breaks, Grigory reveals the latest developments of the situation to Bryan via video calls, leading to his decision to escape to the United States. The use of camera work and music makes the documentary's rhythm intense, and it keeps the audience concerned about Grigory's safety and whether he can escape to the U.S. safely. Although this is ostensibly just a documentary about a doping scandal, the film successfully portrays the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and related departments as terrifying organizations, thereby making Grigory's peril believable to the audience. This is not only a credit to the director but also potentially influenced by the audience's preconceived notions about Russia, leading them to imagine the Russian side as a frightening entity.

The final part of Icarus incorporates many elements from George Orwell's famous novel 1984, following the book's three stages of learning, understanding, and acceptance, dividing Grigory's process of deconstructing the entire incident into three parts. However, because the entire incident is very complex, even with the production team adding animations and other methods to explain it, it's still difficult to avoid certain parts becoming slow-paced and lengthy. At the same time, Grigory's narration in the film also attempts to introduce the concept of doublethink from 1984, to describe the contradiction between "doping" and "anti-doping" that Grigory and others face under the alternative facts propagated by Putin and high-ranking Russian government officials. However, because this concept itself cannot be easily explained in just a few sentences, and the interviews with Grigory in the film are not deep enough, it becomes difficult to fully and effectively explain this concept to the audience and highlight their contradictions.

Despite the numerous issues with Icarus's overall structure and narration, I feel that this documentary does allow audiences to gain a deep understanding of the beginning and end of the Russian doping scandal. The pacing of the middle section of the documentary is also very compelling, making it worth watching. More importantly, in this era full of alternative facts, audiences can gain a simple understanding of some concepts from 1984 through this documentary, comprehending our situation in such an era and how to discern the truth.