‘Endurance’ A Documentary Filled With Fakery
One of the best things a movie can do is tell us a lie (a fictional story) in a way that has the honesty and complexity of the truth. One of the worst things a movie can do is lie to us and pretend it’s true.
That’s what happens in “Endurance,” which looks and sounds like a documentary but gradually reveals itself to be an inexpert fake. It’s the story of Ethiopian distance runner Haile Gebrselassie, who competed in the 1996 Summer Olympics. Raised in a rural community, he ran six miles to and from school, and he had to run fast to avoid being beaten at both ends for being late.
Haile is expected to help out on the family farm, but a coach notices his speed, and then he visits his brother in Ethiopia’s capital, and then how are you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Addis Ababa?
As long as “Endurance” sticks to scenes of Gebrselassie training and competing, it’s on sure ground. The movie uses Olympic footage by the great Bud Greenspan, and it’s exciting stuff because it’s so clearly real, because we want Haile to win, and because we don’t know if he will.
But the scenes of Haile’s home life and of Haile’s family watching his Olympic race on Ethiopian TV? Bogus. It’s actors, pretending to react to the race or pretending to beat the tar out of Haile, and they feel very much like actors. About half of the stuff in the movie is “re-created,” which is frustrating, because those fake moments make us doubt the moments that are true.
“Endurance” is beautifully shot and produced, on a scale way beyond what most documentaries can afford, but it errs in other ways that make us skeptical. We want to see Haile courting his real wife, not the woman who pretends to be her. And we want to know what happened in between the sketchy scenes we’re shown.
“Endurance” eschews narration, because documentary-makers view narration as intrusive and paternal. But faking the scenes of someone’s life is highly intrusive, and they didn’t have a problem with that.
“Endurance” Location: Spokane Valley Mall Credits: Directed by Leslie Woodhead, starring Haile Gebrselassie Rating: G