“The Move Up: 3 seconds that shook the world

On the eve of the New Year , the movie “Moving Up” will be released , dedicated to the legendary basketball match and the victory of the Soviet team at the Olympics in Munich in 1972. The outcome of the match between the USSR and the USA was decided in the final seconds. The journalists of “Championship” managed to attend a closed press screening and be among the first to see what the creators of “The Crew” and “Legend 17” had made.

In order to be more objective, we went to the premiere together with the curator of the “Basketball” section Nikita Zagday. In our review we will present two positions: a person who does not know about basketball and every 15 minutes frantically pulled out his phone to check the too dashing plot with facts from “Wikipedia”, and a person who knew exactly what was happening in those last few seconds on the court, and came to the hall to understand whether the movie is “about basketball” or just a beautiful artistic and commercial picture.

A non-basketball look at the movie “Moving Up”

During the whole movie I could not leave the feeling: “Well, it couldn’t be like that in reality!”. That’s why my hand was reaching for my phone to double-check the factual information studied on the eve of the premiere. In my review I will try to focus on those facts that could catch the most ordinary viewer who came to the theater. Personally, as a person who is not deeply immersed in basketball, I was most concerned with the question: “What was it really like?”.

About the plot of the movie: 1970 – in the USSR national basketball team the head coach is replaced, with the wording “the Soviet government does not forgive losses”. The legendary Gomelsky is replaced by Vladimir Petrovich Garanzhin (the prototype is the real coach of the national team Vladimir Petrovich Kondrashin). Together with him everything changes: from the squad to training methods and tactics of the game. The national team has not just an ambitious, but, at first glance, unattainable goal – to beat the unbeaten Americans at the Olympics in Munich in 1972.

Against the background of the main plot unfolds several complex and at the same time dramatic lines, which make this movie alive and full. Vladimir Petrovich’s son needs an expensive operation abroad, the only chance to convince the Soviet government to sign all the exit lists is to become a hero, to do something impossible and important for the whole Soviet sport.

In parallel, the plot around the national team center Alexander Belov is swirling. During a trip to the training camp in America, he is diagnosed with a rare disease – sarcoma of the heart, doctors give him six months to a couple years to live.

The motto of the last years of Belov’s life becomes the phrase “As long as you are alive, you can do anything”. This permeates the entire plot of the movie. The victory of the national team in the last seconds of the match becomes not just a victory of the country, but something more personal for each hero of that very game. It was not just the outcome of the game, but the fate of the game.

But this is not all the plot lines and peripetias, in the movie there is a beautiful love story between Alexander Belov and Alexandra Svechnikova (the prototype of the heroine – basketball player Alexandra Ovchinnikova). And Georgian feasts with Zurab and Mishiko(Mikhail Korkia and ZurabSakandelidze – the “Georgian tandem” – players of the USSR national team).

And the infamous “Olympic terrorist attack”, which claimed the lives of 11 people from the Israeli national team. My colleague will tell more about it in the review.

You can watch the video on the Central Partnership channel.

All this should be watched, you need to feel and carry it through, and if you tell in advance, it will not be interesting to watch. The main thing I would like to note, speaking about the movie, is that it turned out to be honest both in relation to us and to the American team. Unlike the cartoon hockey players from “Legend 17”, the movie “Moving Up” paid tribute to both teams, there was no goal to show the Americans in an unfavorable angle, the goal was to convey the atmosphere of the battle of champions against champions, the best against the best.

Basketball look at the movie “Moving Up”: the story that had to be invented

Nikita Zagday, curator of the “Basketball “section, tells us about it

“Red car”, “Soviet sport”, “played for the country” and other stereotypical stamps can be safely thrown out of your head when you go to the theater to see “Moving Up”. All you need to know about this movie is that it’s not about basketball.

That was exactly my biggest fear. Because I knew how reverently the creators approached exactly to basketball stories. Director Anton Megerdichev delved into the subject so much that he started watching thematic TV magazines and studying basketball news. Ivan Yedeshko acted as a consultant and was practically responsible for the authenticity of the facts.

The author of that very pass, the hero of the main episode and one of the creators of the victory – a co-participant in the screen adaptation! Basketball people took part in the filming. From the 2007 European champion Nikolay Padius to the heroes of Moscow ‘s street courts. And there were serious fears that it would be just a sports movie for an extremely narrow audience. For the shooting of the movie almost out of foam plastic assembled basketball court. To shoot stunts and not to kill actors and doubles on the hard floor. But all this, as it turned out, is just an illustration for another story.

The video can be seen at the link.

• Munich 72 is not just a sports fairy tale with a happy ending. It is something more than that. To begin with, it’s simply one of the most incredible Olympic tales ever told. It’s no coincidence that the Americans still haven’t taken home the silver medals, as if adding a few more touches to that mystical story. But even in this legend there are a thousand more hidden script lines that don’t even need to be invented.
• Munich is a tragedy with political overtones. Terrorists shoot the Israeli national team and change the Olympic sport. Political coloring (but for some reason under the slogan “sports beyond politics”), security – all of these are hardly the most important aspects of every subsequent Olympics.
• Munich is the starting point for world basketball. In 1972, the Americans lost for the first time. And the Cold War confrontation was born. The USSR versus the United States. What basketball looks like now is the consequences of that very battle. The outcome of all this is the emergence of the “Dream Team” 20 years later, and the globalization of basketball. The 3 seconds didn’t just turn the world upside down, they shook it up, but didn’t immediately mix it up.
• Munich gave birth to a true coaching confrontation. Gomelsky created that very national team. But Kondrashin managed to win the Olympics with it. And then domestic basketball actually split into two camps. To be fair, Gomelsky won gold at the Games only in ’88. Putting an end to the basketball chapter called “The Soviets vs. the United States”.

• That victory practically formalized Sergei Belov’s status as a legend. Without that gold, his greatness was a little less colorful. As dominant a basketball player as he was in his time, only victories make the great. And 20 points in the final against the undefeated Americans is perhaps the greatest feat of Sergei Belov’s career.
• Alexander Belov is the author of the winning shot and the owner of an incurable disease. Only life itself could invent such a story. To become the hero of the main episode in the history of Olympic basketball and to pass away at the age of 26.
• Ivan Yedeshko. A point guard at 195. That was years ahead of his time. And in the national team a not so fast, but tall playmaker appeared exactly on Vladimir Kondrashin’s initiative. The know-how of the early 70s. Magic Johnson of his time! Bottom line – the very same pass. Another story.
• Modestas Paulauskas. One of the first Lithuanian legends. Almost escaped from the Soviet Union. But he stayed and won the Olympics. Another story that deserves a movie adaptation.

• Vladimir Kondrashin. The one who was not afraid of bold experiments and prepared separately for the match with the Americans. He bet on Yedeshko. He let the two Georgians Sakandelidze and Korkia play together for the first time in the final, raising the level of passion to an unbelievable level.

This is a story of people. Those for whom basketball was the meaning of life, and for some it was just a job. The directors of “Moving Up” didn’t pick a story. They mixed it all up and wove it all together. Knitted suits of Soviet athletes, and great sets. A bit of party politics, which was an important part of “amateur sports” at the time. And incredible stories of people. Of different nationalities, born in villages, cities, in different cultures and otherwise accepting the common flag of the USSR.

After watching the movie, ineptly restraining delight, I wanted to do only one thing – dial Ivan Yedeshko’s number and ask two questions. Ivan Ivanovich answered the call immediately.

– How accurately are the characters of the players of that national team portrayed?
– Slightly exaggerated, but nothing made up. Approximately everything was like that.

– Is the chronology of the Olympic final match an artistic move?
– Really?! We’ve talked about it so many times, discussed and debated it. The creators of the movie wanted to convey the emotions and mood of that time as accurately as possible. Of course, basketball is shown differently. But the essence is true. We won that game and almost lost it ourselves. Sergei Belov was great. None of the Americans could stop him. All this is shown, and there is some justice in it. Of course, we didn’t score with such antics, but they explained it to me as a desire to show the brightness of basketball. So if you don’t focus on all the acrobatics, then yes. The movie is more documentary than fiction.

USSR national basketball team

Now that the movie is ready to premiere, the producers are engaged in serious promotion. And this is not just using the tools of the domestic film industry with billboards in the center of Moscow. This is a real basketball story. Actors go to the matches, together with Alzhan Zharmukhamedov and Ivan Yedeshko arranged an autograph session at the Euroleague match. And it was incredibly touching. Yedeshko together with the actor who played Ivan Ivanovich. The actors of the movie have already played several exhibition matches. Preview for movie critics was held in parallel for the “basketball party”. And if the harsh film critics cynically and coldly praised the movie, then unsophisticated viewers barely held back tears. Some because basketball deserved the big screen. And others because of realizing the magnitude of the personalities of that feat. 3 seconds is not just an episode of the final game. It’s the cherry on the cake of great drama.

For a while, basketball became more than just the basis for a great movie. It became part of something bigger than just a sport with the hashtag “best ball game ever.”