Klitschko

This is how I feel about boxing: Live, or from TV footage, I would probably get bored with these brawls and see them as nothing more than one hulk trying to beat the other like a schnitzel. I would be lacking a story, a motivation, a "goal" (and mind you, "goal" doesn't just mean "victory") that the boxer wants to achieve. But when I see stories from the ring in a movie (Raging Bull, Rocky, Million Dollar Baby, Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Boxer and Death...) or in a documentary like Klitschko, where that story is included, I'm satisfied. As far as this film is concerned, it has an advantage, first of all in the two main protagonists, the extremely likable Klitschko brothers, and then in the fact that it was made by Germans who are rightly proud of "their" Ukrainians. Some of the shots are etched in my memory (yes, especially Vitali's struggle with his torn eye), I praise the sensitively filmed family history and the minimum of sentimentality. Four and a bit. (29/06/2012)