The Nagano Tapes

Nostalgia is powerful. It felt like twenty years ago and at times I found myself wanting to burst into tears. But this is no kitschy glorification of something that has grown into a national monument over two decades. It's a beautifully edited montage of the familiar and the unfamiliar, balanced on all fronts of the barricade, and with an incredibly light-footed rhythm, it puts even historical injustices in the same context as hockey rematches. Few films will offer such a full-blooded cinematic experience this year. (03/09/2018)

With all this fuss about a few tens of seconds of not yet seen Imax shots, etc., some such irrelevant information somehow disappeared from the ether and whispering; namely that it is an incredibly well-edited (almost "rhythmized"), composed and documentary of a purely Western professional style with a great cast. I was really surprised how many persons they were able to get in front of the camera and how broad was the scope. Yes, especially at the beginning it jumps a little inconsistently from one topic to another (emigration, change of the NHL after the influx of players from post-communist countries, hockey as a product, etc.). But it will settle. It is clear that it was created for the world, but at the same time it is not like "about us but without us". Maybe it should have not ignored the rest of the team (and other teams from the tournament) apart from the three four chosen ones, but this is a fairy tale about Nagano and not a hockey documentary addressing Hejduk's role in the golden goal. So even though we still lack a quality and a bit pathetic feature film about Nagano, these VHSs fully replace it. (02/28/2018)

It is difficult to define in words why Ondřej Hudeček is now licking cream from everyone. From spectators who experienced the year 1998 as adults and saw hockey results as more of a certain satisfaction than a sports sensation – to us, who shouted the names in elementary school, some of which we had heard for the first time in our lives. I have seen many documentaries that glorified Jaromír Jágr, Dominik Hašek, or the whole Tournament of the Century, and over these twenty years, they have become somewhat profaned and outdated for some, like rewritten history, or tires that no longer spark. But for me, Robert Záruba's golden words are still just as electrifying, as well as his so atypical silence, which is probably the strongest moment of the whole match for him. It is precisely in the context of the known history, a decade of long frustration, a thousand times seen shots, goals, and penalties, in the form of an ode lasting more than an hour, that those feelings return in almost identical form. Interrupted (or completely disrupted) lessons, weekend alarms, hoarse vocal cords screamed at a sports event for the first time in my life, public transport drivers playing radio broadcasts for the whole bus, or the clear task of memorizing the entire lineup. This and much more returns to me with maximum force, and I really couldn't fail to remember those peak moments. Not only because my sister was born two days after the final, so February of that year will forever remain cemented in my life. (03/17/2018)

Documentary of the year. Hudeček is in the same age group as me, so it’s no surprise that he remembers it the same way as me. We were 12! There’s no better age for watching Olympic ice hockey. The Americans had their Supermen and Spidermen, but we had those boys who became idols during that week. We were at school during the shoot-outs with Canada and because we were the only floor with the luck to have that magical tube and because I sat in the front desk and because my friends and I watched it arm in arm and because our Dominik Hašek made that great save, something moved inside me, and I was proud to be Czech. This documentary brought back that memory and, despite everything bad that has gone and is going down, I’m still proud to be Czech. (03/05/2018)

Watching The Nagano Tapes is almost the same as watching one of the crucial films of world cinema. You will get an emotional barrage, a conceptual overflow, and the definition of a decade. A well-mediated compilation of sport highlights with the participation of legends that will never be repeated again. (03/02/2018)

One of the most detailed documentaries I've ever seen, possibly even the best. I'm not exaggerating. Ondřej Hudeček, until now an unknown author, in collaboration with Western colleagues across the Atlantic, managed to create a piece that every Czech should see. I regret that I couldn't experience the nationwide euphoria of 1998 firsthand, when our entire nation was gripped by the hockey team's games as if they were on the ice themselves. The national unity captured in the footage occasionally brought me to tears. I really liked that the creators didn’t just focus on hockey but also compiled snapshots from the lives of our citizens. But back to hockey. The inclusion of former players who shared their stories or simply expressed their feelings at the time significantly elevated the documentary’s quality. I also enjoyed hearing the opinions of opponents our national team faced in Nagano (honestly, some players, especially the Canadians, are still depressed about how we beat them and deprived them of gold). The semifinals with the now-legendary shootouts and the subsequent final against the Russians had to be emotionally impactful for every viewer of this film. I hope to experience something similar (in terms of sports) in my own life. An objective, precise, and occasionally humorous documentary. I give it 95%. (03/16/2018)

This is a great documentary that revisits one of the most important events in Czech modern history. Yes, Nagano was important, which we realize in retrospect just by the way it lifted the nation, which hasn't happened to this extent since. Great interviews, great memories, great shots, and great players on all sides. (03/31/2018)